


This Life

by calliopemoonbeam



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Dream Work, Egypt, Fanfiction, First story, Healers, Healing, Hellas - Freeform, Jaime and Claire, Jaime and Claire through the ages, Jaime x Claire, New Age, Outlander - Freeform, Outlander AU, Past Lives, Scotland, Time and space, exploring past lives, first fic, love through time and space, outlander fanfic, outlander fanfiction, outlander fic, outlander modernish au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 03:32:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16865332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calliopemoonbeam/pseuds/calliopemoonbeam
Summary: This is my first fanfic! I hope it doesn't suck. I had to mine the depths to get the courage to post anything at all, so thank you for giving me the time and reading!Summary -Claire is a healer from a very young age. She trains in the mystical arts around the world, as well as the traditional medical field. She finds herself in London as a surgical resident in the late 1980s and early 90s. She starts having dreams of a past life. Where will they lead her?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N - I’ve never written fanfiction before, so this is all very new. It’s my first story. I am also hella terrified to post even if people don’t read it. I haven’t read canon. I don’t know the “rules” of fanfic, all of it is on a wing and a prayer. This also started as a completely different story. That being said, testing the borders of the comfort zone is a big part of growth and life so it’s happening! Happy reading!

Part I - Chapter 1

Claire Beauchamp was born in the year 1960. From a young age, she had a talent for healing people, not just physically but emotionally. As a child, she was told in no uncertain terms that she had a gift. No doubt the gift appeared after the death of her parents at age 4, the trauma activating the healing energy in her. At the age of 7, she started to understand this, become aware and conscious of how she affected people by mere touch or by lending an ear. Her uncle, an archaeologist with a new age bent, found her an herbalist, a local woman, to study with while they were on the road in Peru during an excavation. He thought, if nothing else, it would entertain her and keep her busy, not realizing how it would change the course of her life.

Once her herbal education began, she became insatiable for healing knowledge. At the age of 12, she began studying with a shaman in Ecuador. It was rare that she was accepted, not only as a female but as a female on the verge of becoming a woman, a white woman. Shamanic studies were not open to women at the time, but her Uncle Lamb had some sway being in the area for many years, and Claire had a reputation of her own at that point that followed her as she crossed borders. Her herbal skills came highly recommended and she carried with her documents of introduction and accomplishment wherever she went. The documents were never enough of course, that is not how those things worked. When she arrived at a place where she wanted to do training, she would set about healing whoever needed it and word would invariably get around that a child with a funny accent and a curly mane of hair was healing people in the village. That was usually enough to get her a second glance from the elders of the area. This was how she came to be one of the first western women to train in Ecuador.

Claire was curious by nature, and it eventually led her to a varied education of myths, legend, magic, shamanism, energy work, herbalism and years later, to traditional medical school. She thought there was never enough knowledge and that each tradition had something to offer, none was mutually exclusive. She knew that as humans, our minds could be small while our brains continue to get bigger, so she endeavored to always learn and weave teachings together to find a larger truth.

As her training and reputation grew, she was sought out by professionals in all fields, anthropology, archaeology, medical, even those in the traditional historical field. She consulted on various projects throughout her surgical residency. Most found it hard to believe that she could keep all of these conflicting viewpoints, practices and traditions in the same heart, but for her it was natural. All was one, all had its own piece to offer to the greater whole.

In the third year of her residency in London, she started having dreams that threw her for a loop. She had had past life dreams before, but this was different. She often experienced shamanic dreamwork and the dreams space was always a powerful one for her and personal healing, however, she knew the difference between ordinary reality dreams and dreams that took place in the other worlds.

This dream was so distinctly in ordinary reality and not in the upper or lower world. The first time, she woke up with a start, sweating, and all of her senses tingling. She didn’t get back to sleep that first time. The vividness of each feeling from the “dream” remained in her, ever present and like she could almost touch them. She stayed up and wrote, meditated and did some journeying with her guides to see if she could get some more information on what had just happened. The guides simply told her to listen to her intuition and that she knew what it was about. She sat in silence and tried to feel into her experience. What she found unsettled her, it was so different than any other past life experience she had come into contact with.

Even though she had a unique childhood and experience with this sort of thing, some small part of herself always thought she was crazy. That little inkling that maybe she had gone round the bend. It was left over from another life for sure, (maybe when she was considered a witch), since in this life she had never received anything but encouragement and faith from those around her and her teachers as she was growing up. She had always been confident in her skills, that is until she reached medical school.

Her first few encounters with other students and their snickering had left her vulnerable as she told them of her childhood, her alternative knowledge and her consulting in various fields. (Ok, maybe from this life too.) She found herself separating herself from the others almost immediately because of the comments. Claire had to prove herself uber competent in everything she did to get them to trust her when they were working together. It worked eventually but they always considered her a little weird and out there, even though she was a skilled doctor. And it wasn’t all that uncommon, as she had learned from her training, for shamanic practitioners and healers to feel separate from other people; feel different in a way that can’t really be explained, so she accepted it.

Only one person seemed interested in her “other life” as an alternative healer and that was a cheery ginger woman named Geillis, whose eyes went wide the first time Claire had delved into her pre-medical school life. Geillis sought Claire out after the others had all gone to pieces with laughter and dismissed her experiences. She pulled her aside and said “I want to know more Claire, will you tell me?” Having just endured one of the more embarrassing episodes of her life as the butt of others laughter and jokes, she did not feel inclined to get into it with Geillis at that moment. But they became fast friends and eventually Claire started to teach Geillis and let her in more and more on her past.

Geillis had always been a curious soul, and Claire recognized kinship within their first real conversation. She let her in and was always glad of it. Glad to have a real friend, an apprentice, and a supporter. Hailing from the Western Scottish Highlands, Geillis had a deep history in folklore and myth from birth but Claire was the first Sassenach that paid it any mind or took interest when Geillis let an old saying slip from her mouth.

Claire always took notice of people who walked into her life and just fit without much effort. She always put it down to her belief of and work with past lives. She figured Geillis must be part of her soul group. It always comforted Claire to feel that and think of it that way since she was always the odd one out and didn’t “fit” with many people.

Geillis was the first and only one she told about this new past life dream that showed up. As she described it and the landscape, Geillis immediately recognized the setting, “Claire! It’s the highlands, this dream is in the highlands!” Having never visited Scotland, even though she had traveled all over the world, she was not able to recognize it but Geillis knew right away. This took some time to absorb. And Claire’s first internal question was, is that why I am back in the UK? 

———————————————-

Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary -
> 
> Claire is a healer from a very young age. She trains in the mystical arts around the world, as well as the traditional medical field. She finds herself in London as a surgical resident in the late 1980s and early 90s. She starts having dreams of a past life. Where will they lead her?
> 
> \---------------------------------------------------------------

This Life - Chapter 2 

 

Claire had always followed her heart, her internal guidance and voice…except that one time she didn’t, Francis, which she sorely regretted. However, being a believer in learning the lessons that showed up in life, she learned and she moved on. She made it a tenet of her existence to follow her inner guidance no matter what. That is how she had ended up in London. It was the next step of many that showed up in her inner experience, and said “THIS is next.” Now she had to wonder if there was something in Scotland for her. She quietly set an intention to travel to Scotland sooner rather than later.

—————————- 

Claire’s dreams of the highlands only intensified after the initial one. With each dream, another piece of the past life was revealed; a mountain, a stonewall, the front of a house, a stream near the house, a garden, herself tending the garden, the view of a valley, a sword and eventually the ability to look down at her own body in the dream. When she finally did, she woke up with a flush and a gasp. She had been wearing a heavy tartan wool skirt, and she could feel the stays dig into her as she leaned over to look at what was on her feet, black slip on shoes that almost looked like modern slippers save for a very small buckle. Now she knew, the tartan gave it away, it was indeed Scotland in the past, and if she had to guess, at least two centuries in the past.

Six months passed before she knew it and she still hadn’t made it to Scotland. With her grueling residency schedule there just wasn’t time. In those six months, the dreams progressed. She was getting a very clear picture of this life and there was no doubt in her body and mind that it was a life she had already lived. 

Before long, a distinct characteristic of this life emerged, she looked happy, she felt happy. She had never seen or experienced that in this life or in any of her previous past life experiences. There was a lightness and openness to her that she didn’t really recognize. It made her happy to see but she also felt a pang of sadness, as she realized it is something that she was not experiencing in this life. She thought maybe it was the simplicity of the time and the lifestyle. From what she could see so far, she spent an inordinate amount of time tending to her herbs in the garden. She had not yet seen inside the house but she could feel it was her home, she knew it was her home. 

In this life, she had a horse, and even knew its name, Brimstone. Animals in the shamanic world were always a source of information, either from their actions and symbols, speech or sometimes an intuitive communication. In these dreams, once Brimstone was introduced she had an ally, a guide, an animal spirit guide helping Claire to learn what she needed to in each dream.

Claire began to welcome the dreams and even felt sad when she woke up and a night had passed without one. She loved piecing this world together and learning about this life. Claire began telling Geillis less and less as she got more involved in this past life, but she had taught her friend well and she could always see it written across Claire’s face when a new and important detail had been revealed in the night. But nothing could have prepared either of them for the night when he finally appeared.

——————————–

After journaling these dreams for six and half months, when she knew this had been a happy life for her, she finally found out why. Why there was a collaborative oneness and wholeness to the life. And why, it had an aura of ease even though it was a difficult life by modern standards, it was him.

Sleeping off a long shift on a Sunday night, she slipped back into the world where she felt at home among her garden. It had become a safe place for her after the long hours of residency and high stress. It calmed her and gently took her nervous system out of the fight or flight response of the day and brought her back to herself. Claire knew she needed to find a place like that in the waking world but for now, this past life would do. 

She thought it was like any of the other dreams, simply a further reveal of a piece she needed to know. She was tending to her garden, feeling peaceful on a rare sunny day in early autumn. The leaves had just started to change, and a light yellow glint danced on some of the upper limbs of the trees nearby. She thought it was interesting that she needed to know the season. That must be important right now. (She had started to become more and more aware and lucid in these dreams, a skill she learned in Ecuador).

As she bent over her plants, starting to pull up those that were starting to wither for the season, she heard a deep sigh behind her, or was that a groan? In all her dreams of this life, she had not encountered another person, only animals and nature. She thought it kind of odd and continued. It came again. She rose slowly, dusted her hands off on her apron, and with all due caution, turned around at a glacial pace not knowing what she would find.

Her breath nearly stopped. A man. A gorgeous man. A ginger man? A tall, gorgeous, ginger haired man.

Because of their distance, and height difference, her eyes first came to his chest, pressing against his white shirt, arms crossed, revealing toned muscle. Wow, those arms. Her eyes slowly drifted up to a set of collar bones that seemed sculpted just for her. Then to his neck, strong, longing to be licked. Did I just lick my lips? she thought. Her gaze crept up to his lips, mouth parted ever so slightly. And in all of the 2 seconds it took to go through this process, her eyes found their intended destination in his gaze. Loch blue, with a glint of knowing mischief.

His mouth parted to speak, “Do ye know what ye are doin to me with your arse in the air like that picking yer wee herbs?”

In a flash, she was outside her body, looking at the scene instead being in her body. She watched in awe, as the woman with her exact face turned coy, giving him a slight toss of her hair and shoulder as she bent down to continue her task, giving him a full side view as she did. A giggle escaped the woman’s mouth. Claire had never giggled like that in her whole life. What on earth is this version of herself she thought as she watched as if on a movie screen.

It took but one long stride of his impressive body for him to reach her. He stood behind her as she picked the herbs and ran a large hand down her spine until it reached her head of dark curls. A desirous groan left his lips as he did. “Beep, beep, beep!” “What the hell?!!” She thought, dazed, as she rolled over and nearly smashed her alarm clock. 

———————————

Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary -
> 
> Claire is a healer from a very young age. She trains in the mystical arts around the world, as well as the traditional medical field. She finds herself in London as a surgical resident in the late 1980s and early 90s. She starts having dreams of a past life. Where will they lead her?
> 
> \----------------------------------------------

##  **_This Life - Chapter 3_ **

 

Claire stumbled around her flat getting ready for work, trying to get a grip on herself. Jesus, that man, WOW, she thought, mind racing. Never had a man been present in any of her past life experiences or recalls. This was certainly new.

In this life, she had precious little experience with romance and love. Men had mostly been a means to an end in her life, a means to an academic and mystical education. She often thought it odd that she didn’t become attracted to men much, enough so that she contemplated if she might like women instead but found that was not the case either. The one time that she did find herself attracted romantically to a man, it was a disaster.

Francis was an anthropologist she had consulted for on a project about herbalism in South America. He was charming, educated and non-threatening, and for once she did find herself attracted to someone. She was 19 and he was older. Her Uncle Lamb had just passed away and she found herself in a state of grief and loss and the comfort of an older man seemed like a remedy at the time. Freud would have had a field day on that, she thought after the fact.

Francis courted her once the consulting contract had completed. Claire’s internal guidance was to stay away, but her heart clouded by grief won out over her internal compass this one time. She needed to feel something, she needed connection, that specifically human experience, conscious connection. 

Claire’s heart had been locked away since her parents died when she was very young. The loss was deep trauma for her, in the shamanic world, soul loss. Soul loss is created during a trauma. The trauma can be small or large, it doesn’t matter, whatever the event, if a person’s system cannot process it is becomes a trauma and soul loss can happen, but it doesn’t happen with every trauma. A common healing practice for soul loss is to perform a soul retrieval, essentially bringing the wounded or lost part back to the person. 

Generally speaking, when there is soul loss, it is not uncommon for the self to create a habit or pattern to fill the space of the soul loss. It is a protective measure, a defense. That is why it is often so hard to heal, it gets masked as a behavior or action that seems normal. In Claire’s case, she went straight to healing others and studying, while keeping most people at a distance, only giving her heart to Lamb. She remained closed off, consumed by her studies for years. This may sound like a contradiction for a healer but in effect it allowed her to be loving, open and compassionate with her patients while not getting overly attached. She maintained separation. As a result, a significant portion of her shamanic training had been heart work. Her own heart healing.  It still continued to the present, even during her residency.

It wasn’t long before Francis tried to change the very essence of who Claire was. Subtly gas-lighting her and demeaning her confidence and credentials as undeserved. She fell into a state of depression. She grieved for her Uncle and her freedom and for the only time she could remember, she felt helpless. She had no one, not even Francis who pretended to love her but only wanted to control her.

She learned a valuable lesson during that time; you can’t love someone and try to control them at the same time. Or at least that was not her definition of love. She didn’t know just what love was yet and she knew she was inexperienced,  but she knew love  wasn’t supposed to feel like that. Claire envisioned love as a space where each person is allowed to be fully themselves and to be honored and celebrated for being exactly who they are. A space where support and being one as a team was second nature. And above all, a home where souls find each other through the recognition of each other.

——————————————————-

Claire composed herself after her dream and made her way into work to start her week. She pondered whether or not she should tell Geillis about the latest dream. She shouldn’t have bothered even thinking about it, Geillis took one look at her and knew something BIG had happened in the 24 hours since she had last seen Claire. She immediately rushed Claire into the on call room. Luckily she had just signed off for a break after a 12 hour shift.

Claire was ghost white and a bit clammy. Geillis sat her down on a bed. As soon as their arses hit the mattress, she said, “Tell me my dear.” A single tear she didn’t know she was holding escaped from Claire’s eye and fell down her cheek. It spilled out of her, the whole dream from last night, him, how she had felt in the dream. She left out the juicy physical details of the man but recounted everything else. She even went back and filled in some of the details from the previous six months that she hadn’t yet told Geillis. It didn’t take long before Claire was full on weeping against her shoulder.  “Gigi (Geillis’ nickname, only used by those closest to her and rarely at that), it made me realize I’ve never loved anyone in this life except my uncle. It makes me unbearably sad!” Claire gasped and sobbed.

Geillis gently patted Claire’s head, giving her a gentle, “shhh, there there love,” every so often.The two had become inseparable as the only two female surgeons in the program. Geillis for the first time had the opportunity to comfort her as Claire had done for her so many times  through her own tumultuous love life. 

“It will come,” she said. Geillis had no doubt that Claire would find love, as she had, but with people like Claire it sometimes took a little longer. Even though Claire was very gifted and educated, sometimes when a life is so focused, other things take longer to develop. This was the way of Claire’s life. Her romantic partnership bone had finally been awakened. Her closed heart was starting to open. The heart healing had finally started to shift. The first part of her awakening was feeling the grief of realizing that a part of her had been asleep. She was closed off to a huge portion of life without having known it.

————————————

Geillis began silently plotting a trip to Scotland for Claire. She had to get that woman to the bonnie mountains and the crisp air of the highlands. She knew it would be transformative for Claire and this near nightly experience she was having. Geillis thought an interesting way to make this happen would be to start introducing her to some Scottish people. Sort of like subliminal advertising for Scotland.

Geillis started to implement her plan the next day. Geillis had plans with her boyfriend D Friday night and she knew Claire had a rare few days off as well. D was willing to help, not knowing the details, and thought they could make a big night out of it to help Claire de-stress. He had been wanting to meeting Gigi’s mysterious friend anyways. It would be a great time, Geillis assured Claire.

Claire had never met D and she was skeptical the first time Geillis had mentioned him. D was 15 years her senior and they had had a seemingly tumultuous relationship. Since it was the only experience she had, Claire immediately compared it to Francis in her mind. Geillis swore it wasn’t the same and that she and D were soul mates. Claire tried to give him the benefit of the doubt since she had never met the man but in her head he was like Francis trying to change her beloved Gigi.

Claire reluctantly agreed to go out with them, a round or two of drinks and being social in public would hopefully help. Claire’s week passed in a flash and she didn’t have another dream until Thursday, mostly due to the lack of sleep and long shifts. The Thursday night, was almost enough to make her skip the night out with Geillis and D. She wanted to stay in bed and sleep as long as humanly possible after her week. But really she just wanted to stay in her dream, as long as she sleep would all, for multiple days even, she hoped. She wanted to see him again, learn more.

As she nodded off on Thursday night, snug in her sparse flat, she found herself back in the garden tending to the herbs, the man still standing behind her, pressed against her, caressing her spine. He collected her hair in his hand brought her back upright, the herbs in her hands falling as they came face to face, inches apart. She had started inside the woman’s body again, felt the tender fingers along her spine, but as soon as they came face to face, she popped back out to being a spectator watching it as a movie. She noted the strangeness of this. She couldn’t keep his gaze without jumping out of body for some reason. 

She watched and listened in awe, dumbstruck by the intimacy of it all, the sheer energy pulsating off of them as she watched him reach for her mouth with his. Embraced in a long, passionate, breath stealing kiss, Claire could feel her spirit self almost need to look away, feeling too much the voyeur of her past self. It was an odd sensation and yet, she could not look away even though she felt she should. She knew this was here for her to see for a reason, even if she didn’t know why.

He pulled back, her curls still spilling over his hand at the back of her head, forehead to forehead, gaze to gaze, “Christ, does it ever stop, the wanting ye?” “I hope we never have to find out.”

He kissed her again, and broke only to say, “It’s only been four months since we wed, yet I find it feels like lifetimes. I wanted ye since that first day I laid eyes on ye. I pray that if we should ever be parted in this life Sassenach, that we will find each other again in the next. My soul will always call out for yours.” “I’ll never leave you my love,” she said back.

Claire woke up choking on her own tears, deep sobs shaking her body. She wept the cry of lifetimes. The cry of  separation and loss of true love. The deepest cry she had ever known in this life. She cried for not having experienced romantic love  in this life. She cried for the fear she never would. She cried for all the lifetimes she might have had with this man that she did not yet remember. She cried for the beauty of it and the pain of it. She cried a silent prayer to find him in this life, and cried some more at how foolish that felt to her, she didn’t even know anything about him. She didn’t know if he was even real.

_—————————-_

_Thanks for reading!_


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary -
> 
> Claire is a healer from a very young age. She trains in the mystical arts around the world, as well as the traditional medical field. She finds herself in London as a surgical resident in the late 1980s and early 90s. She starts having dreams of a past life. Where will they lead her?
> 
> \------------------------------------------------------

##  _**This Life - Chapter 4** _

 

Friday evening rolled around, and it took all of Claire’s considerable strength to extricate herself from the sanctuary of her bed. She had lain in bed most of the day alternately crying, dozing off, thinking, journeying and trying to grasp what was happening to her. How was she going to remedy this new soul knowledge with living in this life, this time. Would she continue healing people? Or was what she needed most to heal herself? Throughout the day she went through all of her practices, ALL of them. She examined herself medically, spiritually, shamanically, she gave herself reiki, she drank herbal teas she concocted from her trainings in Peru, she meditated, she wrote, she put a giant hunk of rose quartz in bed with her. But all of her skills that she had shared for decades with others, failed to help her in that moment…or so she thought at the time. 

Late in the day, she came back to herself enough to think, “This must be some sort of ego death or a shedding of some sort.” Delving back into her expansive knowledge of healing, she made her way to the shamanic practices she loved dearly (even though they often scared the shit out of her in equal measure). Often in her shamanic training she experienced dismemberments. A dismemberment is a dismantling of a piece of the self completely, in order to be remade without out it for further expansion and continuing on your soul path. It was usually a limiting belief or pattern or some other deep seeded piece of self that ended up discarded.

 In shamanic journeys, this can often be violent -  a pile of boulders falling on you, a sword piercing through the belly, a snake eating you and on and on. She hadn’t had one in years, and yet, as she entered her last journey of the day, she was thrust into one.  A snake bit her heart, full fangs, straight in. Claire hated snakes. It was a dismemberment of the limiting belief that she was not lovable and therefore would be abandoned. It was intense and terrifying, but Claire was experienced. She allowed it, knew somehow that it was necessary and related without knowing the particulars. She came out of the journey, rejoined ordinary reality and reflected. Somehow she felt better, more grounded, lighter, optimistic, but also a little out of it. Wobbly.

She showered, committed herself to an open heart and mind for the evening ahead and resolved to have a night of fun and ease. She knew this might be a challenge considering her notions about D but she decided to just observe and see what her friend loved so much about this marginally shady man. He was in the antiquities trade and every so often it seemed there was something a little unsavory about him according to what Geillis had relayed. Even in Lamb’s time, the antiquities trade had somewhat of a reputation for nefarious happenings.

Claire arrived at  _The World’s End_ , as the late summer sun started to set. She quickly spotted her friend’s red hair flying in a circle as,  presumably D,  spun her around and took her in for a kiss. She made her way over and greeted them. D seemed very happy to meet her and shook her hand profusely. They settled into a booth and started chatting. D was very affectionate and attentive with Geillis and Claire started to soften around their relationship ever so slightly. He did seem to care about her, at the least based on how he looked at her.

D told a  wild story about smuggling artifacts out of the holy land. His arms were flailing as he recounted barely escaping a border patrol as he slipped into Jordan. It was a truly unbelievable story and Claire was not sure she believed it at all or approved. D said he soon flew to Cairo, the hub of the antiquities trade, where he met up with his nephew who was researching an Egyptian healer and her noble warrior husband in the archives at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. His nephew apparently didn’t approve either and failed to help him get the artifacts out of the country. “But he can tell you all about that part of the story,” D said with a sly smile. “I hope you don’t mind but he is in town and I invited him to meet us for a drink.” As if on cue, the door opened and D waved over a man. Claire looked suspiciously at Geillis who simply shrugged her shoulders as if she was naive to the appearance of this additional guest.

They stood as D’s nephew made his way to the table. Claire had her back to him, but stood as well. Before she could turn around, she saw a hand reach from her side, to shake D’s hand. The sight of it, and the voice that followed almost dropped her to the floor. “Uncle,” the voice said as they shook hands. “Jaime lad, glad to see ye,” D replied. The man reached over to Geillis, the back of his head shone with dancing red tendrils in front of Claire’s eyes, as he gave Geillis a kiss on the cheek and said, “Gigi, a pleasure as always.” D turned to Jaime and by way of introduction said, “Lad this is Claire, Gigi’s best friend and fellow surgeon.”

It was only then that Jaime turned and Claire knew her body hadn’t been wrong. It was  _him_.

Her eyes met the Loch blue of her past life dreams, and she swayed. She took a step back to hold onto the table, and he himself took a step back, both let out a low audible gasp. D and Gigi noticed it, and said, “do you two know each other?” Jaime regaining his voice after a millennium of a pause, smirked and said, “not in this life….I’m Jaime.” “Claire.” “Sassenach, huh?” “Guess so,” she said as they shook hands in slow motion. 

With their skin joined neither seemed to be able to make a proper sentence. Her body filled with an electric charge that bolted her to where she stood. She began to shake ever so slightly. Imperceptible to everyone else, except Jaime because they were still joined at the hands. Their joined hands had changed from a shake into a palm to palm holding, simply connected. Had they shifted, they would have been in the handfasting clasp of ages gone by.  His fingers unconsciously caressed her hand. She could feel a wave of emotion and a sob forming in her entire body, every cell was screaming. She needed to stop touching him. She pulled away, feeling the immediate loss of connection which she also saw in his eyes which hadn’t left hers.

“Geillis would you mind accompanying me to the loo and the bar?” Claire said abruptly, giving her friend a desperate look. Gigi shimmied out of the booth as Jaime and D shifted to the insides of the booth. As they walked away, Claire grabbed her hand and looked over her shoulder to see Jaime still staring at her, a slightly shocked but not unpleasant expression lingering on his face.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Geillis squeezed Claire’s hand and looked at her curiously.  “What was that all about? What’s up with ye?” The tears started before Claire could control them.  _“It’s him.”_  Claire whispered as they entered the mahogany bathroom. Gigi’s head spun so fast it was a miracle she didn’t get whiplash. “What do ye mean?” “Jaime,” she sobbed now, “He’s the man from my dream.” “Ye are joking me!” “Look at me, does this look like a joke?” “Och, sorry, right. Claire I don’t know what to say. I have known Jaime most of my life. He is very close friends with my brother Ned. In fact, Jaime is how I met D.”

Claire was astonished, and had a flash of insight, soul group, of course. Even though this small connection should have brought her comfort she was shaken to her core. She felt the full range of emotions in that bathroom as Geillis gently rubbed her back. Claire tried to collect herself enough to rejoin the table. All the breathing exercises she had learned in Yoga Teacher Training the year before she entered medical school went out the window as she tried to catch her breath. Eventually her training came back to her as she grounded through her feet and exhalations and the use of the cooling, anxiety reducing, sitali breath.

While she wasn’t unhappy at all, she was experiencing a very strong emotional response to the situation. After crying most of the day, the dismemberment via snake, all her practices, and now this, she was a soupy, ragged mess. She didn’t want to go back to the table like this. She needed to go home and re-calibrate and restore. But, she also didn’t want to make a bad impression with Jaime or worse yet, lose him now that he had appeared. He had to be important someone, why else would this be happening. It was too unreal not to be important.

Geillis steadied her as they left the bathroom, still mystified, but not altogether displeased. In a weird way, it kind of made sense to her, knowing Jaime as she did. Through his love of history and highland upbringing,  he had a penchant for the other wordly and the mythic world just like she did. They had bonded over it one summer during college when they were all back home in the highlands. He was visiting her brother of course, but after a few beers, Jaime’s passion for the mystical came bubbling to the surface. He must have sensed a kinship in the matter with Geillis and they spent hours talking about it.

It was then that he admitted to having found something interesting in a particular historical text. He was working on an Egyptian module in one of his university courses when he found something familiar about one of the noble warrior men. He thought he was being a lunatic but he swore, the description of the man, seemed an awful lot like himself, not physically of course, but there was just something in the personality, the way the man was in the world, AND, there was something about his wife, a healer, a  mixed born woman - making her an “other” of the time, and the devotion to which he showed her. He thought it was rare for the time period and it stood out, their whole story stood out as unique.  He also felt like he knew the story already, his mind skipping ahead of the text as he read, somehow already aware of the details to come on the next page. 

Geillis listened to his story and offhandedly said what he wasn’t saying, “you think it was you in a past life?” His head swung towards her and then to the darkened star strewn sky and almost inaudibly said, “Yes. Does that make me crazy?” “No, I think that makes you a romantic.”

Geillis hadn’t thought about that conversation in years. She knew through her brother and from D that Jaime remained unmarried and obsessed with history. She also knew that some people thought him a bit daft in his field. He was brilliant to be sure, but one of his pet projects was tracking healers through time, specifically ones with devoted warrior type husbands. He found that these pairs seemed to try to change their world as well. It made the historical community uncomfortable because he thought there was a link and they didn’t. Only those closest to him realized that he thought he was tracking himself through time. It was the unstated truth of his work and life. But really, whether he knew it or not at the time, he was looking for her; the healer, the wife, his wife.

As Geillis left the bathroom she wasn’t sure if  _her, the wife,_  was Claire, but this night had surely taken an interesting unplanned turn, she smirked to herself, giving herself a mental pat on the back. The subliminal advertising for Scotland couldn’t be going better if she tried. What better advertisement could there be than a dashing, smokin hot, tall ginger highlander that made Claire’s soul shake. 

Gigi hadn’t known Jaime was in town until D brought it up at the pub, otherwise she would have warned Claire. She was glad she had convinced Claire to go back to the table, red eyes and all. They collected their drinks and ones for Jaime and D as well, whisky of course. The gents’ eyes lit as they saw the two  women returning to the table. They both tucked into the booth on either end, Geillis with D and Claire with Jaime. There was moment of silence but not an uncomfortable one, one with a certain symbiosis to it.

D and Geillis got in their own world for a second and as they did, Jaime leaned over to Claire and said, “Are you alright?” “Truth?” she replied. “Always Sassenach.” “No I’m not, not really and I can’t explain it.” “You don’t have to, I understand.” She shook her head in disbelief because she didn’t believe him. There was no way that this was really happening. She felt like she was losing her mind. Even with all of her alternative practices, decades of experience in other realms and dreams and healings, she still couldn’t believe that something like this was possible, so why would he. He was just a historian.

“I think I’ll go, it’s been quite a long week and I am feeling done in.” Claire stated to the table, drawing Geillis and D out of their one on one conversation. They both nodded in understanding and said their goodbyes. “Can I walk ye out, mo ghràidh?” Geillis and D both shot Jaime a raised eyebrow and a “what the hell?” look knowing what the gaelic meant.  “What’s does that mean?” Claire said. “I’ll tell ye someday,” Jaime said a smile rising to his enviable features.

They shifted out of the booth and Claire allowed him to accompany her after a slight protestation, mostly because she was afraid she was going to faint as soon as she stepped outside. The fresh air hit them in the face and she felt slightly better but still woozy and staggered. To her astonishment Jaime was there to catch and steady her. She was embarrassed she was such a mess. He simply smiled as he felt the fire burn through his body again at the feel of her touch.

He waited with her for a taxi in silence, a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She could feel the emotion rising in her again. She wanted to discontinue contact but when she turned to free herself from his gentle hand, she noticed single tears falling from his eyes. Seeing this she couldn’t stop her own. Tears like orgasm are a way the soul releases when language fails. They are of the body, summoned from the soul.

Their eyes met again, each of their faces lightly tear streaked. She affectionately took his hand from her shoulder and interlaced it into her own. She gazed at their joined hands and felt relief. She raised her gaze and dared to use the limited language of humans. “What is happening?” she asked. “In truth, I dinna ken. All I can tell ye is that I have been waiting, hoping, praying, that we would find each other. I have always dared to hope ye were real. I ken I sound crazy, and we both might feel crazy right now, but I think we just fulfilled a soul promise to each other -  to always find one another, in all our lives, and to spend them together.”

He embraced her before she fell, as she wept, deep, loud, bone shaking sobs and can’t breathe tears. He joined her in kind. “There’s two of us now,” he managed to gasp out between tear soaked lips, hugging her to his chest.

Home.

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_Thanks for reading!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N - In my mind, this story has three parts and this is the end of Part I. Although the story could end here with Chapter 4 (and yes I did consider it), it will have two more parts since I couldn’t stop writing it. It has taken on a life of its own. Everything about this process has taken me by surprise. Thanks for reading and coming along for the ride as I play with this writing thing and learn along the way.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary -
> 
> Claire is a healer from a very young age. She trains in the mystical arts around the world, as well as the traditional medical field. She finds herself in London as a surgical resident in the late 1980s and early 90s. She starts having dreams of a past life. Where will they lead her?
> 
> \------------------------------------------------------------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N - This chapter a tad NSFW-ish but nothing crazy. (I’m also a NSFW writing virgin, hope it doesn’t suck.)

##  _**This Life - Chapter 5** _

 

The moment loch blue met whisky at  _The World’s End_ , Claire’s world literally ended as she knew it. Her entire life unraveled, only to be remade, not unlike a shamanic dismemberment.  The Universe has a sense of humor she thought to herself sometime later.  

 

Waking up Saturday morning, she tried not to berate herself for bringing a total stranger home. She had only uttered 3 sentences to him by the end of the night and yet, there he was in her bed.  Sure, they could have exchanged phone numbers on little pieces of paper, tried to connect between missed phone calls and answering machine messages, eventually gone on a date when he was back in London, sometime in the distant future.  They could have tested the waters of their connection. She could have held herself at a distance, played hard to get, ease her heart that seemed to be trying to free itself from her body, by taking it slow with Jaime. That would have been the rational way to do it. But nothing about the situation was rational. It was meteorically unbelievable.

 

With rationality patently out the window, standing on the curb waiting for a taxi, she had become nearly immobile. There was nothing else she could do but take him home, or rather let him take her to her flat. He practically had to carry her from the taxi to her door. Claire had never been the damsel in distress type, but the sheer force of emotion and lifetimes crashing down on them, was enough to make her feeble after that first sight of him. She knew if it was a really horrible idea, Geillis would have told her since she knew Jaime so well. It gave her a certain comfort that Geillis didn’t come after them, she didn’t try to stop her.

 

Upon entering the flat, too emotionally exhausted to succumb to the natural awkwardness of not knowing each other and being alone together, they let the gaping chasm of vulnerability open and stepped in as they simply cried and held each other. Her body and mind completely overcome, she fell into a fitful sleep, secure in his arms, as the small spoon. She stirred sometime in the night to him whispering to her in Gaelic. The foreign syllables and sounds of his smooth, deep voice, lulled her back to sleep as she fell back into the life she knew centuries ago.

 

For the first time since the dreams appeared, she found herself inside the stone faced house. Home. The twilight before sunrise just peeking through the windows as she prepared for the day, mashing her herbs into a paste for some purpose or other. At the full ray of sun above the horizon she heard footsteps padding down the stairs, sluggish, still asleep and shuffling. She could hear a hand ruffling hair and without turning around she knew it was a red curled mop . A few more strokes of the mortar into the pestle and she felt a large hand tuck a curl behind her ear before it made its way to her waist and a set of lips found their to the curve of her neck. She wondered if this was when she was going to pop back out of direct experience and start watching the scene from the outside again. But she stayed in her body, as he came to envelope her fully from behind, arms wrapping around her waist, clasping at her belly. She waited for him to speak, not knowing if her words would come.

 

They began to sway together, dancing to the silent tune of their connected vibration. She was afraid to turn around for she might leave her body. It was too beautiful and intimate of a moment for her to do anything but bask in it. He kissed her neck again and a slight gasp escaped her mouth as she stopped her work and turned around. To her delight, she didn’t not become a voyeur of the scene, she remained a willing participant in her body. He reached down, dragged his index finger from ear to chin along her jaw and tilted her chin up to kiss her. Like a spark plug returned to the engine, she ignited. If that was just the good morning kiss, she was in trouble she thought.

 

“Good morning, mo nighean donn,” he said gently as they parted, foreheads still connected. “Good morning yourself!” she managed to squeak out as he pulled her closer, as if he was trying to make their body one solid mass. A solid mass that was seriously in danger of burning the whole house down. “Ye look so bonnie this morning.” “Even with this?” She said pointing to her wild mop of untamed curls, each dancing to the beat of its own drum. “Especially with that. Ye left bed too early…yer wee herbs always stealing ye away from me.” “Those wee herbs as you say, have saved your life countless times,” she teased back. “Och, aye, I ken, but I had other plans for ye today…” She broke their embrace to collect the morning tea, coyly glancing over her shoulder, “what plans were those?” “Ye ken fine well what plans, lass,” he nearly growled.

 

The moment she put the down tea to steep and her hands were clear, he was pressing her against the kitchen wall, finding his favorite spot on her neck before he traveled down to her left breast, licking and kissing lower, until his teeth met her laces and pulled. His eyes met hers, looking like the cat that got the cream as he freed more of her skin to worship. In between panting breaths, she thought, thank goodness for low cut tops in this life. A few more quick pulls with his teeth in between nibbles of skin and her body was free of her stays, leaving her shift clad, save for the plaid she had flung around her lower half for warmth when she woke up, not bothering to fully dress. He continued his journey down her body, knelt in front of her removing her hurriedly arranged plaid. She eyed him, wondering how far this was going to go considering they were in the kitchen and she had no idea who else lived in this house of theirs. But it was a dream of a life gone by, so she released all else save for an intention of pure enjoyment. Her locked heart was often an impediment to true enjoyment and she could see and feel this was a part of the lesson of this dream. It was begging her to unlock it.

 

He caught the hem of her shift on the way back up, drawing it up slowly as his fingertips dragged up her leg.  Swiftly tucking his hand underneath it and forcefully grabbing her arse, his head whipped back up to ravish her chest. Ragged breath left her mouth as tiny moans began from her throat. He pulled down the top of her shift licking from one nipple to the other across her chest. Giving each its due time between tongue and teeth. Suddenly breaking free, separating their skin, he stood back to look at her, flush, medusa curls as beautiful as ever, her mouth agape, calling for him to lay his lips back on hers. As quickly as they came to hers and tongues danced, he pulled away again, a knowing look on his face as she trembled. He knelt back down,  lifting her shift over his head as he licked and kissed from ankle to soft flesh. He took her in his mouth, expertly finding all of her body’s twitching points, a map of her pleasure committed to memory.

 

She looked down at his ginger mane and couldn’t believe what was happening. No one had ever done this to her before. She was enraptured and she hadn’t even come yet. A delicate nibble on her clit and her knees buckled, but he steadied her, and thrust a finger inside her. Her moans become almost too much for him to bear. Any of her coherence had long since vanished, she was fully one with this part of herself in this life. A second finger, a brush of his teeth, a lap of his tongue, his deep moan and she released into oblivion, holding the back of his head, nearly blacking out.

 

As she came to, he was looking up at her, smiling. Pulling her down to his level, he laid her down to the floor with the care of a gently placed newborn. He looked her in the eyes and said “Happy Birthday, mo ghràidh,” and he kissed the tip of her nose.  

 

\-------------------------------

Claire woke up clinging to the side of the bed shaking and sweating. Slowly becoming conscious, she realized Jaime was not on the bed with her but on the floor on the side she was clinging to, holding her hand. Her eyes blinked open to reveal Jaime staring wide eyed directly at her, kneeling at the side of the bed. She went to jerk her hand back, but he clasped it tighter. Embarrassment enveloped her.

 

Had her dream been so visceral to her body that it was apparent in the waking world of ordinary reality? Had Jaime just witnessed all of THAT? She searched his serious gaze which was locked on her. Not really knowing this man, she couldn’t read the look, until a small smirk reached his mouth as he said “Is everything alright with ye lass?” That smirk gave away the game. This man she met a mere 5 hours ago had clearly just witnessed her getting off in her sleep. The initial wave of panic gave way to wreckless abandon, a completely new feeling for Claire.  

 

She launched herself from the bed and tackled him to the ground. He caught her by the waist, settling her onto him, like he had done it a thousand times before. Claire felt his arousal through his clothes as he did. He was ready for her, wanted her, which gave her all the confidence she needed to continue. The kiss from the dream still fresh on her lips, she was desperate to have that experience in the waking world with him.  Although only a few seconds of anticipation passed before she could get her lips on his, it felt like an eternity. The soul shaking intensity of the reunion of their mouths in this life immediately brought tears to her eyes. Filled with lust, longing, sheer joy and excitement, the kiss turned strong and aggressive in the most beautiful way. She knew then, she would never have enough of it, no matter how many lifetimes they spent together. The kiss deepened further, both desperately trying to make up for lost time, to reignite and seal the soul contract they made so long ago. They would have stayed there forever if only they didn’t need to breathe.

 

Jaime’s arms wrapped around her tighter and tighter, frantic to possess her, until she finally gasped, “Jaime, you’re crushing me,” bringing him back to himself.  “I’m sorry lass, did I hurt ye?” “Only a little, I couldn’t breathe, though I’m not sure if it was because of your arms or that kiss.” He chuckled. “Aye, probably both Sassenach. ” Suddenly shy, she inched back to separate and sit on the floor, needing a moment, but he wouldn’t let her separate from him. He sat up, her body still straddling his, as he cradled her to his chest and turned to lean his back against the bed. His arousal still noticeable below her.

 

Claire nestled her head on his shoulder, and gently kissed his neck. “I am so scared and confused Jaime, but I am also so happy.” “Me too lass.” “I’m sorry I launched at you when I woke up. I’ve never done anything like that before.” “I’m not sorry.” She lifted her head off his shoulder to look at him and quirked her head, as if to say, “no?”

 

He brushed her hair aside, tucking it behind her ear, just like he had in the dream, “I had only just fallen asleep, excitement and adrenaline filled me, preventing me from falling asleep at first. I could only watch ye there in my arms as yerr breaths got longer and deeper as ye slept. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Then I drifted off, only to be awoken by yer…err… movements.” She turned scarlet, and thanked all that was holy for her mostly dark room.

 

“At first I thought ye were awake, but I soon realized ye werena. The movements of yer body were so fierce that before long ye were on the other side of the bed. Never losing the touch of our bodies, I went around to the side, to make sure ye wouldn’t fall off.” Her eyes, now the size of saucers, watched him tell the story of what she looked like in the waking world while having a sexual encounter with him in a dream of their past life together. It was almost too much. She felt like her brain might explode, her heart already bursting, her entire body flushed.

 

“I held yer hand, so we wouldn’t break connection but ye near broke my fingers. I watched ye and I wondered what could make ye move and feel like that in a dream.” “You,” she sheepishly interrupted. His mouth dropped open, and he didn’t regain speech for a full minute. “I dinna understand.” “I think you do…Well maybe not your mind yet, but your body knows.” His face contorted into a perplexed state as he tried to take this in. “Jaime there is so much to talk about, but right now, we just need to rest. It’s all too much.” They made their way back onto the bed, laying down facing each other, weaving every part of their body together they could. Both exhausted from the emotional rejoining, they slept. 

 

———————————-

_Thanks for reading!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N - I considered doing a time jump at the beginning of this chapter but decided against it because the middle of this story is still working itself out in my head. Are people a fan of time jumps?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary -
> 
> Claire is a healer from a very young age. She trains in the mystical arts around the world, as well as the traditional medical field. She finds herself in London as a surgical resident in the late 1980s and early 90s. She starts having dreams of a past life. Where will they lead her?  
> _________________________________________________________________

This Life - Chapter 6 

 

By some miracle, or divine plan, Claire wasn’t due back to work until Monday, which she was grateful for after the massive breaking open of her soul on Friday night. When she woke on Friday morning, before the fateful night out, she had made the unusual and extremely rare decision to turn her pager off. Even though she hadn’t met Jaime yet, on Friday morning she knew she needed to go deep inside herself, and be undisturbed for the weekend. She did leave her phone on the hook and the answering machine on but she turned off the ringer. When she woke on Saturday, she was glad of the decision. They had been able to take what they needed from sleep to restore themselves after the emotional roller coaster of Friday night and the wee hours of Saturday morning.

 

Claire woke to the smell of coffee, shockingly the midday sun and pair of loving blue eyes staring at her, memorizing every part of her. “Oh,” she said a little startled and shy as she came to, surprised she hadn’t had another dream, but also more surprised that her past life husband was now staring her in the face. She looked at him and unconsciously thought “true partner, true husband.”

 

“Good Morning,” he rasped. He looked like he had been awake for some time, and there was something intense about his look, while also being soft just for her. His eyes were a shade of puffy and red, in addition to their characteristic sky reflecting loch blue. He had been crying as she slept.

 

It was endearing to know that the intensity of this experience was a mutual endeavor.

 

“Jaime, um, hi.” She stammered out. She wasn’t used to having a man in her bed, least of all one she barely knew…although was that really true?. It was mind bending and she was trying to get ahold of herself. Claire was also conflicted, thought she might be a little crazy, knew she needed to drop into some of her practices and settle herself, but simultaneously, felt no resistance and more safe than she had ever felt in this life. Her ability to hold all of the knowledge of her seemingly contradictory healing practices at once, danced in her mind as she tried to apply the same sensation and philosophy to this situation. Experiencing every available human emotion at once was making this a hard task. Reminding herself to listen to her heart, not to freak out and close up, was the hardest one of all.

 

After every expansion, there is often a time of contraction, step back or slight closing. It’s like you get scared of how big your spirit is and how much you can truly expand. Your being suddenly says, “No! Too big!” and tries to dive into an old pattern to protect itself. Claire was fighting this with every particle of her being, conscious and unconscious. She knew this was going to be a continual practice as she journeyed through the re-connection with this the being in front of her.

 

Bringing the sheet up, to cover her face for a minute as she collected herself, he gently pressed it back down. “Dinna hide. T’is real.” “So you, found the coffee, then?” she said with an exaggerated sniff, avoiding the intensity of his comment and stare. “Sassenach, ye dinna have many material things, t’was easy to find, do ye want some?” “Immediately,” she laughed.

 

Jaime walked to the other room of her small flat. The whole of which encompassed a small kitchen, a cozy sitting area, and her bookshelves. Books were the majority of her material possessions. The flat may have been on the petite side, tucked into the eaves of the top floor of an old Kensington building but it was comfortable, perfect for her and above all, had a terrace. The flat could have been a dump and she still would have bought it for the terrace. When she moved to London to start medical school, she had used most of her inheritance from Lamb to buy herself this sanctuary, knowing she would need a safe place to rest her weary body from the anti-circadian rhythms of residency. She also needed a place to practice her still mostly frowned upon healing arts in privacy.

 

Claire removed herself from her bed to tidy herself up before joining Jaime in the other room. She nervously washed her face, changed her clothes, trying not to try too hard, throwing on the first shirt she found, and her comfiest worn out jeans. She flung her hair up in a loose bun in a green scrunchie. She was used to being super casual with most of her clothing being of the scrubs and white coat variety. She silently hoped he wouldn’t mind.

 

Jaime was holding two coffee cups, examining her bookshelves when she came out. His eyebrows met his hairline when he saw her. She couldn’t figure out why and then she followed his gaze to her shirt and she realized she was wearing a green, blue and black, plaid flannel shirt, essentially a tartan. Of course I pulled out the most Scottish looking thing I own without realizing it, she mused silently. She shrugged and said, “it was the first thing I could find.” He nodded as a knowing smile broke across his face. “Shall we enjoy yerr wee terrace while the sun is out?” “Oh yes please, what a rarity.” “It makes sense to me,” he said shyly, “The sun has finally come back into my world.” Her blush was immediate. “Are you always this cheesy?” She teased lightheartedly, unable to accept the emotion behind the statement. “Ehrm, I dinna ken, I guess we’ll find out,” he shrugged still beaming. She crossed the room, kissed him on the cheek and took the coffee from his outstretched hand.

 

Claire led Jaime outside to the small terrace, just big enough for a small table, two chairs and a few plants, which she often shuttled inside and out depending on the London weather, acid rain always being an issue. They sat in companionable silence and sipped their coffee, enjoying the sun on their faces. Every few breaths they would meet each others eyes and smile shyly, then look back out over the bustle of Saturday in the city. Claire had never been happier in this life.

 

————————————

“I love that ye have so many books,” he said out of the blue. “I dinna ken the medical ones of course, but I saw many of my favorites in yer shelf. For a Doctor, ye have quite a lot of history and archaeology books.”

 

“My Uncle, Lamb, who raised me was an archaeologist, we traveled quite a bit when I was child and I absorbed some of his fascination of history and archaeology but it was always about the healing for me. I read history to find out about healing practices. I helped with the digs to see if they would discover a healing ceremony or a healer I could learn from.” He nodded, almost knowingly, she thought.

 

They spent hours on the terrace, generally getting to know each other as people. Time slowed down as they shared their life stories with each other. She told him of her upbringing all over the world, how she got her start in healing, her dear Uncle Lamb, how she came to be in London to enter medical school. He curiously noted, that she did not mention any romantic relationships. She was stunning, surely she must have had suitors he thought, trying to suppress his jealousy with even the thought of that.

 

Jaime recounted his childhood in the highlands, spoke of his sister and younger brother, his parents who had passed away, his mother when he was young and his father as a teen, he swore of a broken heart even though the doctors said it was a heart attack. He spoke of their family farm, in detail, and it was clear how much he loved his home. He described the stone front of the manor house, the stream running next to it, the view of the valley and when he got describing the garden, Claire gasped.

 

“Are ye ok?”

 

“Jaime, I know your home.”

 

“What do ye mean?”

 

“Do you believe in past lives Jaime?”

 

“Of course,” he said without hesitation.

 

She relaxed at that, releasing a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “What you are describing, was where I was in my dream last night. I’ve had a life there before……………..with you.”

 

His face registered nothing, as a silent veil came over them. Both holding their breath until Jaime drew a breath so deep, she swore it was a ten second inhalation followed by the deepest sigh she had ever heard. His whole demeanor changed.

 

“Claire,” he hadn’t used her name since last night she thought. “I dinna think ye understand, and I dinna think I really did either… I’ve been looking for ye.” Under any other circumstance, this would have sent her for the hills, it was too freaky, to stalkerish, but with him, she started to involuntarily release water from her eyes.

 

He reached over and interlaced their fingers, both instantly relaxing as they met skin to skin. “I’ve been looking for ye through history. When I was at University studying history, I took a semester of Egyptian History. It was an amazing course combining traditional Egyptian history and the technological advances of each reign. And although Egypt wasna my specialty or true area of interest, I was utterly drawn to it.” Claire felt a chill down her spine, where was this going?

 

“Late one night in the middle of that semester I was in the library, going over the reign of Hatshepsut, only the second female pharaoh, when I came across a picture of her temple in ancient Thebes. I thought maybe I had spent too long in the library and was losing it because the picture…it looked… familiar.” She didn’t want to stop him but she had to tell him, “I’ve been there,” Claire said quietly. “I ken ye have.”

 

“No, Jaime, I mean in this life. My Uncle did some work in Egypt not long after my parents died when he became my guardian.I always thought I imagined it due to my grief but, I had an “experience” there. It stayed with me as an early memory of the mystical and I used it as a courage point whenever I got lost in my education over the years in South America. It always brought me comfort, like I was on the right path.”

 

“Truly, I canna say I’m surprised,” Jaime said lightly, eyes a sparkle, as he continued his story, while absorbing what she had said.

 

“After I saw that picture, I read about Hatshepsut’s court and the beginning of her reign which started in 1478 BC. What I found so distinct about that particular text is that it brought great deal of attention to one specific person in her court, her healer, Chione. Chione, was a woman of mixed birth, considered an “other” at the time, so it was rare that she would have been given such an important, prominent position. It became clear that she was not only her healer but also a confidant of the female Pharaoh. Chione was partnered to a warrior by the name of Gamal. According to this text their love was legendary. Although, a warrior, often away or leading expeditions for the Pharaoh, Gamal was hopelessly devoted to Chione, and when he wasna off with the army, they were inseparable.” He choked a little in recounting this story. It was clear to Claire that this had been a turning point in his life.

 

“What does Chione mean?” “Mythical daughter of the Nile.” “Oh…” Claire said as she tried to suppress a shiver.

 

“Their story got in my bones and I became obsessed with that time period and the rule of Hatshepsut. It’s no like I was so interested in Egyptian history, ye ken, just this couple, and their experience during her rule. I tho’ I had gone off the deep end and in a way I had. I began to isolate myself, allowing my research to consume me completely. I did the bare minimum for my other courses as my obsession overtook me. Finally, my friend John Gray staged an intervention and dragged me kicking and screaming from the library so I could get a look at myself. I was gaunt, malnourished, dark black circles marking my eyes and I hadn’t spent time outside in more than month. I love the outdoors,ye ken, so this was of particular concern to John. He took one look at me and thought I should see a doctor, he was scared I was terminally ill by the look of me. Thank God for John Gray. I would have researched myself into a coma.”

 

Claire knew there was so much more to this, so she allowed the brief silence, until he was ready to continue. Giving his hand a slight squeeze to encourage him.

 

“I promised him I would spend time away from the library and refocus my efforts on my other studies, ye ken like the ones I was actually getting a degree in,” he joked.

 

“I went to the doctor and they admitted me for malnourishment. I spent three days in the hospital between the waking world, a deep haze and drug induced sleep. During that time I had a vision or a dream, I’m no really sure what it was. In it, I learned my obsession was what I had suspected all along but didn’t dare admit…I was Gamal.”

 

Claire drew in a sharp, astonished breath as he squeezed her hand in reassurance and continued it let it all flow out.

 

“He had seemed so familiar every time I read about him and I just couldna put my finger on why. This vision showed me. He was familiar because he was me, I was him. In the vision, that life was connected to another, as I was revealed as a farmer on an island in the Mediterranean, Hellas I would later find out. In that life, I had a wife, a healer, and I knew it was Chione again, but she looked different and had a different name, as did I. By the time I awoke in the hospital a number of what I considered to be past lives had been revealed. I considered it was a drug induced hallucination and resolved to let it go…mostly. But I also allowed it to bring me hope and comfort in times of loneliness or confusion.The fact that it felt like a real possibility to me, crazy or no, gave me hope.” He sighed deeply, Claire could see the relief of sharing this story in his body, as he unburdened himself to become closer to her, trusting she would not find him to be a lunatic and would understand. Naked vulnerability and a dash of faith.

 

“But the experience never left me. Without looking, the couple began to find me as I went about my regular historical research. Him usually a warrior type, her always a healer. Their MO was trying to change the world for the better through their skills at seemingly important parts of history. I finished my degree, went on the get my doctorate in Scottish history and highland culture. On the side tho’ I always read about these two in one way or another. I think I was trying to learn about myself, my lineage, my soul lineage but I realize now that more than anything I was looking for her.”

 

Claire’s breath hitched. “I was looking for you,” he said, as tears began to stream down his face again, hers quickly following. They clasped both hands together, over the small terrace table, crying, simply being together in a unique moment in time when they were together again in the same life.

 

“I feel like an utter idiot, but, I never considered that ye might have incarnated in this life, at the same time as me again. I think some part of me always hoped but I had never looked for ye in this life, only in the past,” he wept as a mixture of tears of joy, pain, loss and hope fell onto the table and blessing their joined hands.

——————————-

Thanks for reading!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N - So I know people are probably expecting them to be screwing like bunnies but keep in mind they haven’t even known each other 24 hours yet, and this is an extremely emotional situation. Patience grasshoppers :) Chapter 7 should be out on Thursday. I’m trying to get on a schedule, but damn that is challenging! Props to all the authors who do that. 
> 
> On the Egyptian names, I googled Egyptian names, and chose the two that worked. Gamil also has a variation that is spelled Jamil or Jamael and I thought it was kinda close to Jaime and well it means handsome, haha. 
> 
> Fun Fact - I’ve been to Hatshepsut’s temple that I mention in this chapter! The whole of ancient Thebes, now Luxor area, are out of this world. I still obsess over the night photos I took there. They are so mystical and give me chills when I look at them.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary -  
> Claire is a healer from a very young age. She trains in the mystical arts around the world, as well as the traditional medical field. She finds herself in London as a surgical resident in the late 1980s and early 90s. She starts having dreams of a past life. Where will they lead her?
> 
> \--------------------------------------------------------

** This Life - Chapter 7 **

Time slipped by and as the sun set over the city, the color streaked dusk brought Jaime and Claire out of their bubble. Bellies rumbling, they realized they were starved, having only eaten a few light snacks throughout the afternoon. Claire suggested they walk to her favorite curry place around the corner because as a typical medical resident, she had no food in her flat. The curry place was open all sorts of strange hours so she frequented it after long shifts.

The ten minute walk she had taken a thousand times before was new again, her whole world shifting, perspective changing. She marveled at the form walking next to her, a content smile reaching her lips, she could feel the relaxed state of her body in the moment. She was so lost in thought she swayed and bumped into him a bit, she tried to move away embarrassed that she was now stumbling around him, but he grabbed for her hand to steady her and never let go, not even when they walked into the curry shop.

The guys behind the counter yelled out, “Dr. Claire!” as she walked in, then did a triple take as the tall, red headed, Scot stepped in behind her, still holding her hand.

The teasing began immediately. “Dr. Claire! Are you here with a man?! A real live man?” She blushed and Jaime smiled but also swelled with pride knowing it was clearly not something that had happened before. “Are you getting married?!” Claire had never been redder in her life. She went to answer but Jaime got to them first and said in all seriousness, “Not yet.” She wanted to run out of the shop, as they all turned to look at her tomato colored face. But a small part of her also wanted to jump Jaime right there in the shop in front of all of them. She kept her cool, except for the heat pulsing in waves out of her body.

Walking back to her flat, they opened and shared the crispy hot chips, dying to get something into their stomachs. They giggled all the way home, teasing each other about this and that, still processing the last 24 hours. Oh my, she thought, the last 24 hours. it was only then that it occurred to Claire that this man had left the pub last night and never looked back, he hadn’t tried to leave at all.

“Jaime, where do you live?”

“Scotland.”

“Oh of course. D had said you only happened to be in town, I forgot.”

Her heart sunk slightly, as she let slip a question to which she dreaded the answer,

“When do you have to go back?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“Oh…”

“Can I stay with ye until then?” he said anxiously.

“Of course.”

They arrived back to her flat to find a blinking answering machine illuminating the dark room. She considered not listening to it but in the end she did. Her ears were met with a screaming Geillis through the machine. “Doctor Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp, ye CANNA just leave a pub like that and then not call me for 24 hours, what is wrong with ye? I’m worried! Are ye ok? Jaime never came back into the pub, did he leave wit ye? His friend John Gray called my flat saying he never arrived back last night. Is he wit ye? OH MY GOD, CLAIRE, did ye sleep wit James Fraser? Call me as soon as humanly possible! I have surgery early tomorrow morning, please leave me a message at home or at the hospital. Claire we MUST speak! Love you!” Click.

Until Geillis said his surname on the message, she didn’t realize she hadn’t asked. She tried it on in her mouth, “F-r-a-s-e-r” before whirling around to see Jaime standing against the wall, arms crossed and an amused smile on his face. Claire shrugged her shoulders and giggled.

“I suppose I should call John,” he said, like it hadn’t occurred to him to call the person he was staying with until Geillis mentioned it. “Sure,” she said, “would you like some privacy while you call? There’s a phone in the bedroom too.” “Nay, there’s nothing I need to say that I dinna want ye to hear.” He smiled.

“John, I’m safe, sorry I dinna call…it’s just…I met someone…HER…ye ken..” Their phone call was short, but she was beaming at that particular statement. Then she caught herself, what am I doing?! Why am I acting like I am out of my wits with a crush. I don’t giggle. Who am I right now? Her old pattern emerged in a siege of doubts and mistrust of herself.

She turned her back on Jaime and began her anxiety cooling sitali breath, inhaling through a stuck out rolled tongue, exhaling through the nose with a closed mouth, while using the mantra of her heart, “I am lovable. I trust my heart. It is safe to love.”

She was so engrossed in this momentary practice that she didn’t hear Jaime walk over to her. He touched her shoulder and she startled. “Are ye alright lass?” “I’m just a little overwhelmed with all of this. It hit me all of a sudden. I was doing a little pranayama practice.” “Prana- wha?” “It’s part of yoga, it’s a focused controlled breath practice; using your breath in a certain way to create a specific condition in the body. It helps me when I am experiencing intensity.” “Oh, ok, ye’ll have to teach me.” “I will.”

Ten minutes later, Jaime was schooled in sitali breathing and John was at the door. He had decided to drop off Jaime’s bags since Jaime had made it clear he had no intention of leaving Claire’s side until he absolutely had to. Plus John was climbing out of his skin he was so interested to meet her.

Jaime opened the door, embraced his friend, and asked him to step inside. John gave his friend a once over, noticing that something was different about him. He seems pretty comfortable here, John mused in his head. As soon as John saw Claire he knew Jaime had found what he was always looking for. Somehow she seemed familiar to John too. Claire shook his hand, and quirked her head ever so slightly. Soul groups she thought, as a flicker of recognition crossed her eyes as well. Claire invited John to stay for a whisky and curry, which he did, before politely excusing himself and leaving them to their night. Jaime and John embraced and John said, “See you again soon, I assume, brother,” with an eyebrow raised. “Of course, thank ye John.”

When Jaime closed the door, Claire came to him and kissed him straight on the mouth fueled by a bit of whisky courage and the cover of darkness. They hadn’t kissed all day, only held hands mostly. It had been one of the most intense days of her life and that was saying a lot. He broke the kiss and embraced her deep and long, trying to absorb her fully.

Forehead to forehead, they rested, until he spoke. “Can I trouble ye for the use of yer shower? I need to regroup.” “Of course…shall I join you?” Her courage still coursing through her veins. ‘Ah dhia, I would love nothing more, I want ye so badly, I can scarcely breathe…but I dinna think it wise.” “Oh,” she said deflated. 

“Claire, I’ve been waiting for ye my whole life, but it isn’t usual what it is between us, it’s different, and the last 24 hours have thrown us both around the earth and back, I…I think we should take it a little slow.” His words said take it slow, but his body betrayed him, as he kissed her again. Panting, they parted. He showed super-human will power by picking up his bag and heading towards the bedroom. She threw him a towel and he was gone.

As soon as she heard the water running, she collapsed on her bed. She had no idea how long he was in the shower, but she must have dozed off because she woke up to the click of the bathroom door opening. Jaime emerged, towel clad but otherwise naked, drops of water still dancing on his skin. 

He didn’t realize she was in the room and stopped in his tracks when saw her stirring on the bed, eyes blinking open and then brows jumping up on her face. Seeing her reaction to him, aroused him and he chastised himself for not bringing his clothes into the bathroom, he had momentarily forgotten how small her flat was. His towel hid nothing, and they froze eyes locked for what seemed like an eternity. A moment of fate, no doubt.

“Och, Claire, I’m sorry, I shoulda brought my bag in, it’s just I barely fit in ther myself.” “Please don’t be sorry…you are a sight to behold…” she said desperately trying not to lick her lips. A deep red crept up his muscular chest and slid up his cheeks. 

She held out her hand to him, beckoning him across the small room, “Come, I want to look at you.” When he arrived just a few feet from her, her hand reached for his other holding his towel, as their hands intertwined, the towel fell. She walked around him, dragging her fingers, feather light around his body. His fist clenched in an effort not to grab her and throw her on the bed. She examined him with such love and curiosity, it almost made his heart burst.

As she came back around his front, a single finger traced from his lips to throat to sternum to navel, to the tip of his cock. His entire body reacted, shaking, breath stopping. By some miracle, he composed himself enough to say, “Fairs fair,” and started to unbutton her plaid shirt, as she reached for the button on her jeans. Rubbing his thumb over her collar bone, deepening his gaze and breath with each button he opened. His large hands reached her jeans and with a swift movement he dropped them to the floor. As she stepped out of them, he realized she was not wearing knickers. His hands came up to her shoulders and eased her gently out of her shirt. He looked down at her exposed breasts in awe, silently wondering if she had been without a bra the whole day. Surely he would have noticed if she hadn’t been wearing one the whole day, he thought, or was he so engrossed he missed it? Had she been waiting for this moment the whole day?

He took a step back to look at her in pure adoration. Circling her naked form the same as she had him. His full circle complete he simply stood staring at her unable to speak. “Have you never seen a naked woman before?” She asked. “Once,” he said “But no like this. Christ Claire, ye’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

—————————————

Claire gently stirred, coming back to the waking world, red curls tickling her face. Jaime was sharing her pillow. A content smile broke across her face, as she realized how close he was to her. She tucked her arm under his and crossed his chest to hold him tighter as she became the big spoon.

Jaime seemed dead to the world but found her hand across his heart, interlaced their fingers and continued to sleep. Claire lay awake, tucked in behind him, starting to replay their night and the last 36 hours together. Claire started to admit to herself completely that her life would never be the same.

They had gone to bed to sleep, keeping their earlier promise to take it slowly, even though they had now seen each other fully naked. Their bond, being beyond sexual desire, beyond this lifetime, allowed them to simply memorize each others bodies. The intimacy of that exercise was almost enough to make them collapse. They both knew that once the sexual flood gates opened there would be no closing them. But there was also another reason for their tentativeness to dive in fully, they had discovered that they were both relatively inexperienced.

Given that Jaime was leaving the next night and there was so much left to discuss, her rational mind won out…this time. She also knew that relationships like this, across time and space, always had a larger plan. Even though they had found each other, it didn’t necessarily mean their destiny was to be together in this life. She was scared. She had desperately wanted to ravish him, but she was also terrified. There was so much to sort out. Hell, she didn’t even know where in Scotland, in this time, he lived or when she would be able to see him again. 

—————————————

Thanks for reading!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N - Originally this was not much of a slow burn, but sometimes things change when you binge write. It makes sense in my head. We are still around the 36 hour since meeting mark. There will be a little bit of a time jump in the next chapter. Stay tuned.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary -  
> Claire is a healer from a very young age. She trains in the mystical arts around the world, as well as the traditional medical field. She finds herself in London as a surgical resident in the late 1980s and early 90s. She starts having dreams of a past life. Where will they lead her?
> 
> \-----------------------------------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N - This chapter is NSFW…I think.

** This Life - Chapter 8 **

Life is funny Claire thought as she walked hand in hand with Jaime up to the Callanish Stones just before sunset five years later. On this, their fifth Samhain together, they found themselves called again to a stone circle. She could have never imagined that night, the “chance” meeting, at The World’s End would lead to a completely different life, a whole new path…or maybe it had been written for ages, etched into her soul, encoded into her DNA, a destiny she couldn’t avoid and didn’t want to. 

————————————-

Claire knew the time apart from Jaime was going to be excruciating. What she didn’t know was how much her long distance phone bill would be. Yikes! A months worth of long distance phone calls and she nearly had to dip into her inheritance to cover it. But it was worth it. The last month had been a revelation. Although they hadn’t seen each other in person since she left him at Euston station the weekend they met, they had spoken by phone every chance they got since. They had intended to meet back up sooner but they kept getting derailed. Her schedule had been all over the place as she did scut work, observed as many surgeries as they would let her, and tried not to collapse from exhaustion.

 

Very late one night, after getting off the phone with Jaime, with an early shift looming, she began to wonder if she would finish her residency at all. Did she even want to? Her life had shifted cataclysmically. Was she trying to fit her new self into her old life? Was it still what she wanted? She already had so many skills that could help people, did she also have to be a surgeon? Had her purpose shifted?

————————————–

A myriad of questions flowed through her brain as she watched the rolling countryside farms wiz by en route to Scotland. At last after 6 long weeks, and many failed plans, she was headed to see Jaime. She had scheduled a holiday around her birthday months ago, so instead of going to a beach, she took the opportunity to finally go to Scotland.

 

Claire stepped off the train in Glasgow and seriously considered her sanity. Her heart told her to press on, every fiber of her being indicated a step forward, but her brain, her rational mind, begged her to be cautious, throwing up every block it could muster. Her mind stilled as she turned to walk inside the station and caught a glimpse of Jaime running down the platform, breaking into a the largest grin she had ever seen as he caught her eye. She started to walk toward him unable to contain her glee. He scooped her up into his arms and gave her a crushing hug followed by a kiss that lit up every cell in her body. Every doubt left her body, she knew she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

 

“I’m sorry, sassenach, too much for public?” he laughed suddenly too aware of himself and the stares of the people around them. “Never.” She had been so nervous that the connection wouldn’t be there again, what with the distance and time. That perhaps that previous weekend together had been a fluke, but every worry dissipated when as soon as she saw him and their skin met. He grabbed her hand and led her to his old green range rover, desperate to be alone with her back in their own world. 

 

Jaime had insisted on picking her up in Glasgow even though his home was closer to Inverness. She was happy to take the train all the way up but he said he needed to be with her as soon as possible. Plus he wanted to show her Scotland on the way to his home, be her personal tour guide, since it was her first time in Scotland. She had found out through their many phone conversations that being a historical tour guide was a hobby of sorts of his. He was a born storyteller like most Scots. He had a true passion and flair for it, weaving the historical details with stories of interesting people of the times and their families. She could listen to him talk all day with his low Scottish bur, getting more pronounced with each story and mile they traveled from Glasgow. 

 

Claire was so enthralled with his tales, their interlaced hands and an elation she had never felt before, that the few hours drive to Glencoe passed in a blink. Outside of town, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, Jaime pulled into a drive weaving through the land. A mile later, a small white cottage with a slate roof emerged from the mist and green hills.

 

“Where are we?”

 

“One of my godfather’s cottages.” Claire quirked her head, she knew his godfather had a little real estate business that also encompassed some holiday cottages, but it still caught her off guard.

 

“I rented it for us for tonight, as a surprise…I hope ye don’t mind,” he said suddenly shy. “Of course not, Jaime. I’m just happy to be in the flesh with you again.” A smile of pride crossed his face as he opened the door for her.

 

“I’m goin to cook for ye, sassenach,” he called over his shoulder rummaging through the already stocked refrigerator. She couldn’t remember the last time any one cooked for her or even offered to. She was overwhelmed for the hundredth time that day with his obvious care for her. “I love you.” She blurted out. Fuck, did I say that out loud, she thought as she covered her mouth with her hand, embarrassed. Claire silently prayed that he wasn’t going to run out the door. She had no idea what came over her, she was never this free with her feelings, but it was how she felt. 

 

He stood slowly, closing the refrigerator door, rising to his full height. He turned silently and crossed the kitchen towards her with purpose, unreadable eyes locked on hers. He grabbed her hands, pulled her in close, kissed her with all of his emotion, a single tear parting his eye, “I love ye too, Claire. I always have, I always will. There will never be anyone else for me.” He picked her up, devoured her mouth, and carried her to the bedroom. He made quick work of their clothes, barely taking a breath until they were each in their last layer. He slowed, taking her in with reverence, heat radiating from each of them.

 

“Mo ghraidh, I canna wait any longer, will ye have me?” “Yes..yes, I’ll have you Jaime.” With that they stripped each other of their final barrier to fully exposed skin and each other. Jaime kissed her like there was a coming drought of kisses in the world and he needed to stock up before the supply ran out. Breathless, Claire found an expanding dampness between her legs, a rising tingle and longing, deep bone shattering longing. Jaime nibbled her ear, dragged his tongue down her neck, and sucked the hollow of her throat. He traced the infinity symbol across her breasts, filling in each side with a spiral ending at each nipple. Jesus, this man, she thought, nearly releasing at this action alone. Did he know the symbols he was drawing across her body with his tongue? What they meant to her?

 

Gone was the nervousness he had expressed to Claire over the phone late one night a few weeks ago, as they recounted their sexual pasts in this life. Neither was very experienced it turned out. Jaime had been with only one woman, Mary, just before University. He had started to feel like there was something wrong with him because he wasn’t chasing girls the way his friends were, especially Ian who had been chasing his sister, Jenny, practically since they were born. 

 

He had known Mary for many years, having grown up together, so they made an arrangement. Neither wanted to go to University a virgin, so they decided to be with each other. They both needed it, needed the comfort, the experience, the experimentation. Jaime had felt bad about it later because he knew he did not love her and she did not love him. His Catholic upbringing echoing in his mind as he made the agreement with Mary.

 

It had been largely mechanical, quick, and uneventful for them. They even exchanged thank yous at the end. It was never spoken of again, even though they were often in each others presence being from such a small town. Luckily it was never awkward and simply became a thing of the past.

 

Jaime had fooled around with women in the first few years of University, but it never went that far. He could never really get into it fully. Once his Egyptian obsession started, he never really paid much attention to another woman again, save the historical healer, until he saw Claire that night at the pub.

 

Claire had shared her experience with Francis on the same phone call. She recounted it with cold detachment, no noticeable emotion, Jaime had noticed. Claire had only been with Francis three times. They had waited a long time to enter that stage of their relationship and Francis had known she was a virgin. Once they had had sex, his desire to change and control her started to appear. They slept together just two more times before she started pull away from him and eventually left him.

 

Jaime licked and kissed away all the nerves she had about sleeping with him. He traveled further down her body. Although inexperienced, his intuition and connection to her took over and the desire to worship the woman before him guided his movements. His heart already knew her body. His essence remembered what she liked and it came through him from the ages.

 

“Ah dia, yer so wet,” he said in a low groan as he arrived between her legs, his lips kissing her most precious space. He continued to make the infinity spiral over her most delicate area, activating soul memories without knowing it. She could barely stand it, sweat running down her face, goosebumps blanketing her body. He added a finger as he brought his mouth of the small nub of flesh purely designed for pleasure, his other hand reaching for her nipple, squeezing, flicking and rubbing the hardness under his thumb. She lost all control of her ability to decipher between his dexterous tongue and fingers. Pure sensation took over as her pleasure rose. Each stroke and swirl of his long fingers inside her made her more desperate. His teeth gently grazing her clit made her buck her hips ferociously. His cool breath skimmed across her soaking wetness, as he pulled back in awe of her, before returning his mouth to her, eyes looking directly into hers. He near had to chase her across the bed for how much she was thrashing in advance of her release. Her moan as she came nearly undid him. He could have stared at her forever as her whole body shook, emptying into him as he drank her essence.

 

Claire caught her breath and returned to her body from the outer reaches of her spirit. She looked down at him marveling over her body and what had just happened. Reaching her hands to his head she brought him up and kissed him fiercely, tasting herself on his lips, feeling his hardness against her belly, she reached down to give him some attentive strokes. He broke their kiss, panting, “I canna…ye musn’t…continue…” She looked him straight in the eyes and said “Then do it now and don’t be gentle.” Guiding him to her wetness, his breath hitched when their skin touched. The force was overwhelming as he entered her. He stilled as her body curled tight around him, her legs finding a natural spot to cross at his lower back. For a few breaths he just looked at her, feeling his body connected with hers before she rolled her hips, and clenched around him encouraging him to move. Taking her cue, by the next breath he was completely lost to the moment thrusting deep into her chasing his own oblivion. Becoming one, with each movement, he found a spot she didn’t know existed and she screamed a sound she didn’t know she was able to make, as her body shuddered with her release, pulsing him further inside her sending him to his own undoing. His heat and release filling her completely.

 

He collapsed on top of her. It took a minute for her to come back to herself to realize she couldn’t breathe. “Jaime,” she whispered into his ear which was conveniently right next to her mouth, “You’re crushing me, again” “Sorry, love.” He mumbled and rolled to her side, sleepily reaching his arms out to snuggle her in, immediately falling asleep.

 

Hours later, she woke to the smell of garlic, roasting onions and basil. She lay naked in bed, soreness blooming, a light plaid laid over part of her body, breasts exposed. Taking the plaid from the bed and wrapping it around her, hair a massive beehive, she wandered out into the kitchen to find Jaime, humming, tune-lessly over the stove, bare chested, wearing an apron and sweatpants. He heard her emerge and looked over at her with a dopey brilliant smile, “have a nice sleep?” She shook her head in the affirmative, smiling wide, curls flinging wildly in every direction. With just the wiggle of those curls, he felt himself stir. She would be the death of him, he thought.

 

“What is that delightful smell?” “Just some pasta…I thought we might need some…carbs…” his voice trailed off, as they both broke into a deep belly laugh. With that she made her way over to him and tucked herself under his arm, allowing him to squeeze her in. He lifted the spoon for her to taste. Her “mmmmm,” made him want to take her right there on the floor but he resisted, they needed to replenish themselves.

 

Claire’s delighted groans grew with each bite, causing Jaime to stay seated for the rest of the meal, cock trying to free itself from his sweatpants to find it’s home. A glass of wine later, their meal almost complete, Claire decided to breach the subject of their encounter. “Where did you learn how to do that? No one has ever done that to me before.” “Ehrm, I’ve never done it before. I don’t really know what came over me. It was like I just knew yer body, ye ken. It was almost out of body for me. I willna lie to ye, yer scream was earth shattering and I almost lost myself in it.”

 

She blushed and stood to clear the plates and wine glasses from the table. Meandering back over to him, still seated and apron clad. She straddled him, letting her plaid fall, “Let’s see what else you can lose yourself in,” she said as she removed his apron, rocking her hips into his already present hardened length. He looked at her in awe, hands resting on her hips, kissing her. Lifting her hips enough so that he could send his sweatpants to his ankles, he rested her back down onto him. Claire’s mouth opened and released more sounds she didn’t recognize. Her slow rock increased to frantic pace. His arms traced her back as he continued to watch this woman, his love, work herself into a frenzy riding him. She didn’t need any help, so he simply took it in, tried not to come and nibbled, sucked and kneaded her conveniently close breasts. The angle was just right for her, his cock reaching deep inside, curving ever so slightly to find its destination. Her arousal was so high that it didn’t take long for her to find her peak. She rode the wave of her pleasure, eyes coming back into focus on his. His gaze was pure astonishment and love. He stared at her and kissed her slow, sensual and purposeful. The gratitude that she exists in this life, present on his burning lips. 

 

Claire went to get up realizing he was still hard and that it hadn’t been a mutual release. But he pulled her back down. “I want to give you my mouth,” she said, looking at him surprised. “I dinna want yer mouth sassenach…at least not in that way right now…” he trailed off leaving open the possibility for later. “I dinna wish to be parted from your flesh,” he said, his voice deepening as he thrust into her, clasping her arse, and lifting her up onto the round table, pressing her down like a sacrifice to the gods. Still connected he loved her thoroughly, hips meeting each other, flesh smacking. He thrust her hands over her head, holding them there, as he pounded every ounce of his emotion, longing and lifetimes of desire into her. He lost himself in the motion, in the joining and mumbled at her forcefully in Gaelic, eyes wild. The sheer force was overwhelming and hard enough that she wondered if they would break the table. She was grateful they were in the middle of nowhere in a house alone together, as she screamed his name and he came with his entire body and emitting soul bending sound.

 

—————————-

The first rays of light reached into the bedroom, casting Claire in an ethereal light. Jaime lay awake watching Claire sleep in his arms. He truly couldn’t believe that this was real and he prayed he would never wake up from this dream. His whole nervous system buzzed with the excitement of the next couple of weeks with Claire and then hopefully the rest of this lifetime.

 

He unconsciously started rubbing his thumb between her breasts, the center of her energetic heart. His soul guiding him, letting his other half know he was there, that he would be there as long as he drew breath, that he loved her. Calming her still healing injured heart with the energetic connection that existed between them.

 

She stirred, intertwining his fingers at her heart and drew him in closer. She muttered a “mhhhmmm.” Blinking her eyes open, face soft, she looked over her shoulder at him, “morning.” With a smirk she pressed her sizeable arse into his morning erection and he gasped surprised. She kissed him over her shoulder and laid her head back on the pillow away from him. He thought she was going back to sleep but she continued to rock her arse back into him. His hand left her heart and traveled down to find her already wet. He silently wondered how it was even possible considering the night they had had. His system received it as a compliment as his thumb delicately played with her clit knowing she must be sore, he was too if he was honest with himself.

 

Her moans began with the first touch, causing him to bite his own tongue and then latch on to her neck as she began to squirm. Her hand reached back for his hardened length and began to stroke. Moving together, sleepily yet with hunger for each other, she decided to bring him to her. “What are ye doin, love?” “I want to try it like this.” “Is it possible?” “I don’t know, let’s try.” Their inexperience showing but curiosity winning out over nervousness about not knowing. His breath left him as he entered her slowly from behind, dipping into the well of her body. Seamlessly moving in time together, perfect puzzle pieces, his hands wandered the front side of her body, thumb continuing its circles over her clit, his lips glued to her shoulder, teeth gnawing at her skin. Breaths becoming short, enveloped in each other, they came together, as one.

 

An hour before they were set to depart the cottage for his home, there was a knock at the door. Jaime opened it and embraced the man on the other side. “Claire, may I present my godfather Murtagh.”   
Claire shook his hand. “I’ve heard so much about you!” “All the good things I hope, lass.” “Always!” She chuckled, as he gave her a once over, and a twinkle spread to his eyes.

 

Claire packed up the remainder of her belongings in the bedroom, waddling from soreness, permagrin on her face each time she winced remembering why she was sore and how fully Jaime had filled her.

 

Jaime and Murtagh huddled outside chatting in the mist. “What do ye make of her?” “She’ll do lad, she’ll do.” Jaime smiled, “I mean to make her my wife.” His godfather turned to him tenuously, “Do ye now?” “Aye, its her, its always been her.” “If how ye’ve been acting and looking the last month is any indication, I’d say, that sounds about right.” For all his gruff and tumble exterior, Murtagh was at heart a romantic, and he felt pride in his godson for accepting the gift of Claire with all his heart. The lad had grown up well and he couldn’t be happier for it.

 

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_Thanks for reading!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N - This is my first real attempt at light smut. Bare with me as I find my footing. 
> 
> Fun Fact - In the first paragraph I mention the Callanish Stones at sunset, I took the picture in the story header when I was racing across the Isle of Lewis to reach the Callanish stones before sunset / at sunset.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary -  
> Claire is a healer from a very young age. She trains in the mystical arts around the world, as well as the traditional medical field. She finds herself in London as a surgical resident in the late 1980s and early 90s. She starts having dreams of a past life. Where will they lead her?
> 
> —————————————

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N - This chapter essentially wrote itself. This is not where I thought it was going, nor what I had “planned” for this chapter. Writing is funny. So there’s a joke, a bit of fluff, some light NSFW, some doubts about the future and some love. Also, if you haven’t been to Scotland, a single track road is a narrow one lane road, usually fairly windy. When two cars meet on roads like this, one has to fine a “passing place,” an area where the road is wide enough for two cars to pass. Some roads have a lot of them, but sometime you have to reverse to find one. It’s always an adventure driving roads like that and people are usually really nice about it. Make sure to give a wave to the other driver when passing!

** This Life - Chapter 9 **

Jaime and Claire’s drive from Glencoe to Lallybroch snaked them through some of the most beautiful parts of the country. Even though Claire had been all over the world with Lamb, the highlands captured her heart with each turn. There was something special about it. She felt an overwhelming sense of home rise in her. But it wasn’t just the land it was Jaime.

 

Jaime had planned a few more stops along the way, a hike, a picnic, and a few of his favorite viewpoints. He had planned every part of their journey with care and Claire was overwhelmed with the kindness of it all. She was used to being the one who cared for everyone, letting herself receive was an entirely new experience. Her physical desire for him, now fully unleashed, grew as he doted on her.

 

Traveling the single track roads seemingly in the middle of nowhere made her brave. She allowed her hands to drift as Jaime drove and told stories, pointing out spots of particular beauty up in the mountains.

 

She had leaned over the snuggle into him as he drove, making the accessibility to his thighs and belt much more convenient. Claire was sneaky about it, not making a big fuss, just allowing her caress to rise high up his thigh until she went straight for his crotch. He near jumped and ran of the road as she grabbed him fully. She laughed deviously.

 

“Sassenach, what are ye doin?”

 

“What does it feel like I am doing?”

 

“Claire, stop. I canna concentrate.” He said breathlessly as his hardness grew. Completely ignoring him, she went for his belt, allowing herself access to him. His jeans were loose enough to allow her hand to give him the full strokes she desired. She knew she might cause an accident but she was insatiable and there were no other cars for miles, and enough “passing places” that Jaime could pull over if need be.

 

Jaime desperately tried to keep his eyes on the curving road ahead of him as he marveled at what was happening. The conversation in his head dancing between, what did I do to deserve this and don’t crash, and that was before she freed him from his pants and gave him her mouth.

 

“Christ, fuck, Claire…ye canna…I canna…don’t stop…” he gasped as she took him deep into the back of her throat, sucked all the way back to the tip before swirling her tongue around and over his head. He inadvertently slowed the car to a snails pace as she continued, he reached his long arm over the center console to grab for her arse realizing it was bare underneath her dress. He groaned as his hand met her flesh. Claire climbed further over the console, moving more of her body to his side of the car granting him more access to her as she fondled his balls, driving her mouth harder, up and down, along his shaft. The sensation became to much for him and the car came to a complete stop in the middle of the single track road and Jaime let his head fall back on the headrest in ecstasy, until he heard a car horn urging him along. Embarrassed, he pulled over into the next passing place and off the road, exploding into Claire’s mouth a few minutes later as she brought him to completion.

 

Head still back on the headrest, eyes closed, Claire looked up at him, gave him one more lick for good measure and re-situated herself. She had been wanting to do that since he picked her up in Glasgow and was completely turned on by being able to pleasure him so.

 

Jaime eventually came back to himself, when Claire tried to go back to her side of the car to reach for a Coke. He grabbed her, brought her back to his side and kissed her fully and sweetly. Sighing and resting his forehead against hers. Freeing her to find her seat again. Grabbing her hand, loch blue meeting whisky frozen in time.

 

“I dinna ken what to say… that was…incredible. I felt like my heart was going to burst.”

 

Claire smiled broadly back him, and leaned down to kiss their joined hands.

 

“Where did ye learn how to do that?” He asked, afraid of the answer.

 

“Well I might be inexperienced, but I AM a doctor,” she cheekily answered, as they both dissolved into giggles.

 

———————————–

Arriving at Lallybroch, much later than expected due to all their “stops,” they were met directly by Jaime’s sister, Jenny, and her husband Ian and a rabble of bairns.They all lived on the estate with it being big too big for just Jaime. Most of the time Jaime was happy for the company but sometimes it was a lot and he knew the day would come when the Murrays would move to a separate house on the property.

 

The meeting was cordial enough, Jenny saying she was pleased to finally meet Claire since Jaime wouldn’t stop talking about her and near had the phone implanted in his head since the last time he had seen her.

 

They settled into the old Laird’s room, apparently, it would have been Jaime’s title, if had that still been a thing. The property had been passed down for generations, Jaime told her as they began their tour of the main house. Arriving in the library, Claire gasped. It was magnificent. Claire perused the shelves, gaping in awe of its collection and the fact that Jaime could maintain so many ancient volumes and the massive property that is Lallybroch as a historian. She assumed maybe it was family money or something but it turned out she was wrong. She knew the house was open for historical tours which Jaime often guided himself simply out of the pure joy and love of his home, but surely that wasn’t enough to keep the place running.

 

“Jaime, what’s this?” Claire asked handing him a book that seemed quite out of place in the shelf of historical wonders, Outlander. “Gigi read this once, she couldn’t stop raving about all the hot sex in it.”

 

He turned a shade of crimson she had never seen before and he walked over to take the book from her. Claire couldn’t figure out why he was so flush. Was he a secret lover of romance novels? In that moment, he looked like a man keeping a secret. She crossed her arms and glared at him, one eyebrow raised.

 

“Och, well I guess I have to tell ye now…no one knows sassenach, so ye have to keep my secret…” he said rubbing the back of his neck, gaze downcast. She looked him up and down with curious wonder and trepidation, what bomb was he about to drop on me, she asked herself.

 

Whispering, he said, “…I wrote the book…”

 

“Wot?! Surely you must be joking.”

 

“Truly, I wish I was mo nighean donn,” he said embarrassment visibly coursing through his body. 

 

“Jaime this says it was written by Diana somebody.” “It’s a nom de guerre, a pen name.” “You used a woman’s name as a pen name? Well that is a hell of a twist on pen names throughout history. Why’d you choose this name?” “Diana is often translated as divine and that is what I felt when I wrote it. The story came through me, I didn’t think it, as strange as that may sound.” “And the surname?”

 

He laughed, but continued to blush, “Originally it was to be Gamble, as in I am taking a Gamble putting this book out into the world, but I got drunk one night and slurred when sharing it with Jenny and well that became the name.”

 

“That is the most ridiculous tale I have ever heard.”

 

“I ken, trust me, I ken it well.”

 

“Now I’ll have to read it.”

 

“Please don’t Claire, it was an unusual time in my life when I wrote it and I still dinna ken where it came from except my love of history. When it became a bestseller, neither the publisher nor I knew what to do about it. So the publisher just told everyone that the author was very private and a bit of a recluse. That way the author would never have to be seen in public.”

 

Claire fell to her knees clutching her stomach as she fell to pieces of laughter. She couldn’t catch her breath as she nearly wet herself. She laughed from her marrow.

 

Jaime stood arms crossed simply staring at her.

 

“Are ye quite finished?”

 

“Love, I will never be finished laughing over that fact that you wrote a time traveling romance novel under a female pen name that became a bestseller. Even saying that out loud…” Her giggles took over again as she lost her speech falling to the floor clutching her belly as she laughed uncontrollably.

 

“It’s no’ a romance novel. It’s historical fiction.”

 

“Whatever you say Jaime….” She cackled.

 

The money from the book, which she did eventually read, noting the elements of their previous Scottish life together throughout the book, went into a trust to maintain the Lallybroch Estate. The publisher had come back to him to trying to get him to write a sequel but he declined and sold the story to the publisher to do with it as they wished. The story was then passed on to another author, a woman in the States, who agreed to use the same pen name. The second book had just come out and continued to be a bestseller. Jaime got a little kick back on each new book for years to come. All the while keeping the secret between himself, Jenny, Claire and the publisher. 

 

————————————

A week at Lallybroch passed in a flash. They celebrated her birthday, she got to know the property inside and out, and was able to spend time with the Murrays. She woke one morning to an empty cold bed and the sounds of muffled arguing downstairs. Jaime and Jenny were at it again. They were fierce those Frasers, passionate, and loving, but stubborn as mules.

 

Claire tiptoed downstairs not wanting to interrupt them and headed straight for the kitchen. Whatever they were on about, she knew she would hear about it later. She tiptoed past the closed door of the library when she heard her name. She heard Jenny say, “But brother, ye barely know Claire.” “I love her and that is all that matters. Time means nothing.” He snapped back.

 

She let her legs carry her away, not wanting to hear half conversations and get any wrong ideas. She trusted Jaime to share what he wanted when he wanted. She trusted him completely, which in and of itself was a revelation.

 

Curled into her coffee mug in the kitchen, Jaime burst in. His whole system looked angry and tense, but he smiled when he saw her. “Good yer up.” “Good Morning to you too.” He walked over and kissed her on the forehead and said, “Come Sassenach, let’s walk.”

 

Pulling their wellies and layers on, they stepped outside into the brisk late October morning. He clasped her hand and brought her to the stables. “We’re going to have some assistance in our walk,” he said motioning to the horses and then saddling them.

 

Since she arrived, she had bonded with one horse, Brimstone…yes, the one and the same from her dream. She took it as a sign…of course. A sign that she was exactly where she needed to be.

 

Jaime led with Donas, his frisky, wild beast that only listened to him, that is until Claire showed up. The peaceful ride, left them each to their own thoughts in comfortable silence, sharing brilliant knowing smiles throughout. She curiously pondered that she had barely thought about work since she left for holiday. That’s the purpose of a holiday silly, she thought to herself.

 

They rode to the outer edges of Lallybroch to the top of one of the steep surrounding hills. The view was spectacular, you could see all of Lallybroch bathed in a rare Scottish sun. She was overwhelmed with a sense of pure joy, and the knowledge that she had never been happier in this life. Each day with Jaime it seemed was better than the last.

 

They dismounted, letting the horses graze while they walked along the ridge. Jaime, arm wrapped around her shoulder, showed her the boundaries of the land, kind of like a king she mused. Her King. Her love. She beamed with pride watching him in his element.

 

Jaime motioned Claire over to a big slab of rock, that looked as though it was placed there on purpose as a bench. As Claire sat, Jaime didn’t sit with her but instead knelt in front of her clasping her hands. She thought it odd but there was clearly something he had to share with her. She guessed the row with Jenny.

 

“Claire, this past week, the past 6 weeks, I’ve never been happier in my life. I love ye more than I thought it ever possible to love anyone. I know we have had ages and lives together. I know we have hurt each other in other lives, learned many lessons, and I still want to do it all again. I want to keep learning and keep loving you.”

 

Well this is very serious, she thought. Not cluing into what was happening for a few minutes.

 

“I know you have a purpose, you are a great healer, you have a whole life in London, and this is a big ask so soon,and I’m not asking ye to give that up, but will ye move to Scotland, eventually? Will ye be my wife…again?”

 

Claire froze, completely caught off guard. 

 

Tears started streaming down Claire’s face as soon as she realized what was happening. She launched at him embracing him, arms thrown around his neck as she sobbed. He held her, not knowing what it meant.

 

“Is that a yes?,” he said into her neck, her wild curls tickling his nose.

 

Claire eventually pulled away to look him in the eyes. “Yes, yes I’ll marry you Jaime. Of course.”

 

He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, reached into his pocket and pulled out a small wooden box he had carved just for her. The letters C.E.B.F. gracing the top. He opened it to reveal his mother’s sapphire, brilliantly gleaming, the sun catching it just right. He placed it on her ring finger and she noted how right it felt, like it had always been there. Like it was always destined to be there.

 

Looking back, she would remember so many things from that day. The look in his eyes as he gazed up at her from one knee, the crisp, damp, October highland air, the feel of him placing the ring on her finger, their mutual joy, comfort and tears. But above all, she would always remember how she felt, and how right she knew it was without even thinking about it. He was right, time didn’t matter. 

 

————————————-

_Thanks for reading!_


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary   
> Claire is a healer from a very young age. She trains in the mystical arts around the world, as well as the traditional medical field. She finds herself in London as a surgical resident in the late 1980s and early 90s. She starts having dreams of a past life. Where will they lead her?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N - I had planned to get this chapter out last week, but life. So it just so happens this chapter deals with Samhain and now I am publishing it on Samhain. I guess it was meant to be. This was the hardest chapter for me to write so far. I am trying to figure out where I want to end the story and if I am going to write an arc II. My original intentions started to shift somewhere around chapter 7. I had so many ideas and so many avenues I could have/still might take. Thanks for bearing with me as a new writer!

** This Life - Chapter 10 **

Claire was scheduled to leave Lallybroch on November 2nd, giving her enough time to end her holiday, get her bearings and return to work. On the outside she was happier than she had ever been in this life and relished each breath with Jaime. But internally, her mind raced. She was nervous about going back to London, returning to work, trying to figure out the long distance thing for a while and honing in on what the next step was. It was going to be extremely complicated, change was always challenging. It also hadn’t escaped her that they were still in the honeymoon phase, yet to have their first fight. She knew it would come, they were both stubborn and passionate. And if they had chosen to incarnate together again there was surely a reason and a lesson or many lessons still to come. They were bananas in love and romantics but they were also realists living in the world in the 1990s.

—————————————-

Almost as soon as they had arrived at Lallybroch, Jaime had started to school Claire on Samhain. Truth be told he was a little surprised she wasn’t more versed in the Ancient Celtic Wheel of the Year given her varied mystical studies. He told her of the “thinning veil” between the worlds. It was a time when portals and possibilities opened up. She was intrigued but also a little unsettled and she wasn’t sure why, this type of thing was right up her alley.

 

The pair ventured into Inverness to get preparations for Samhain. Jaime guided her to a small shop called “Bits and Bobs” off of Huntly Street on the Northwest side of the River Ness. It was eclectic to say the least, dried herbs hung from the ceiling, containers of crystals littered low tables, herbal concoctions and remedies lined the crooked shelves and piles of books stretched from floor to ceiling. Jaime barely fit in the shop with the low ceiling. They poked around not really knowing what they were looking for. A small woman with a kind face came out from the back and greeted them cordially, but her gaze lingered on them. It was long enough that Claire, ever the caregiver, asked after her wellbeing, “Is everything alright, Mrs.?”

 

“Graham. Oh aye deary. Sorry about that, I seem to have slipped off for a moment.” “Do you need to sit down?” Claire asked. “Och no, it’s nothing like that. It’s just…the two of ye. Ye have a bit of an energetic aura about ye, maybe a bit of destiny too.” Claire stood up straight, startling Jaime.

 

“Let me call my husband, he’ll know how to say it more clearly. Raymond!”

 

An equally small man strolled out, eyes bugging out of his head looking at the two near giants in front of him by comparison to him and his wife. His gaze lingered as well, his eyes tracing their forms, looking beyond them and all around them.

 

“What would ye say about them dear?”

 

“Well Mademoiselle Graham, I’d say Samhain is going to be QUITE interesting for them. They couldn’t have come into our shop at a better time, a ceremony is in order,” He said in heavily accented French.

 

They are quite the odd pair, Claire thought, taking in the bizarre scene in front of her. Jaime at her side was silent, taking it all in. He eventually chimed in, “Where will this ceremony need to be?”

 

“Well a stone circle of course, Kilmartin Glen, will do nicely. I’d send you to Clava because it’s closer but it’d be too busy with Outlander fans and their cameras for a proper ceremony.” Jaime blushed and grabbed my hand for comfort, his biggest secret quietly following him.

 

Raymond and Mrs. Graham scurried around the shop collecting herbs, a few books, gemstones, candles and lanterns. Jaime and Claire looked on with curiosity. Jaime had heard stories of such things, especially in his research but he didn’t know people still seriously did ceremony on the cross quarter days.

 

“You’ll have to report back to us after you visit Kilmartin Glen,” Mrs. Graham said with a twinkle in her eyes. Claire couldn’t help but feel like she knew more than she was saying. She got very quiet, which was unlike her. They paid and left the shop, Claire’s voice did not return.

 

“Sassenach, what aren’t ye saying?” Jaime asked, concern spreading to his face as they strolled along the River Ness.

 

Claire shrugged, he pushed her to share what was on her mind. “I can’t really explain it but something about the whole idea of Samhain has me shaken. Even when you started telling me about it when I first arrived, I had a really uncomfortable energy rise in me. I’m not sure what to make of it.”

 

He took her hands, “Claire, it’s just a bit of fun.”

 

“Jaime, I don’t want to sound harsh, but, are you out of your mind? Have the last 6 weeks taught you nothing?! What if something happens during this ceremony? What if information is revealed that we can never come back from, me and you. What if we are altered and can never truly live in the world again? What if it separates us?”

 

Jaime paused, serious now, looking at his love, seeing the fear creep fully into her eyes. “Then I’ll find you. I will always find you.”

 

She kissed him for his words, for his absolute faith but her reservations were not quelled. She needed to research, tap into the shamanic realm, read more, and sit with the things that seemed to be holding her back. She had been a part of many ceremonies over the years, why was she having such reaction to the idea of this one, an aversion specifically.

 

Each shamanic practitioner experiences the shamanic world differently. There are a multitude of lineages from all around the world, each person is taught differently based on their teacher and the lineage, but there are also similarities that run through traditions that have had no contact or communication. The work can often be unclear but other times razor sharp with clarity. It works through changing the brain waves, seeing, symbols, hearing, metaphor, and sensation among others. Claire always “saw,” meaning when she entered a journey she would see a scene play out before her or be a part of the scene experiencing it, not unlike her first past life dream about Scotland.

 

When she entered a shamanic journey in the garden of Lallybroch later that day, it was muddled. Her intention and question had been clear, something that she was taught was paramount when entering a journey. In the journey, she had appeared in an old library with massive stacks of books. Her guides had shown her a worn, red leather book with her soon to be name (CEBF) etched on the cover. When she opened it, she could see that there was type there but she could not read it. It was as though a thin veil was covering her eyes preventing clarity. She flipped further into the sizeable book and it turned into a mix of handwriting and typed font. Once she passed the halfway mark, certain words slowly become visible to her veil covered eyes. The journey ended with her hand shaking as it held a quill over the book open to a blank page.

 

Coming out of the journey, she turned to her notebook beside her to scribble down as many of the words as she could before she forgot. Staring at the blue ink, she recognized all the letters but could not make sense of the words. Keep. Faith. If. You. Knew. Would. You. Still. Love. Only. Love.

 

The set of words created anxiousness in her system, which started to evolve into a more full blown fear. What did the words mean? Should she tell Jaime? Should they do the ceremony? Why was she so afraid? What did it mean?

 

She laid back in the garden and stared at the slow moving cloud cover, reading the shapes. Hoping something would trigger the words to a full meaning.

 

Eventually Jaime came looking for her. “Sassenach?” He called out. It became clear he couldn’t see her lying in the garden with the untamed late fall overgrowth, left to its own devices.

 

“Over here.” She called out, moving only her arm to wave so he could use it to find her, still lying back.

 

Crunching the brush underfoot, Jaime’s foot steps neared her reclined body.

 

“Mo ghraidh, are ye done with yer wee journey.”

 

“It was not a wee anything,” she uncharacteristically snapped back. 

 

Cocking his head, he picked up on his fiance’s tone and laid down next to her, placed his head on her chest, listening to her heart, arm slung over her midsection, hand resting on her hip bone, fingers wrapping around her flesh.

 

“Do ye want to talk about it?” He knew Claire often needed space after journeys and he gave it, but this seemed different so he engaged. He didn’t understand this particular practice of hers but he always took her at her word, knowing there was a truth and trust between the two of them.

 

“Not yet, my love.” She wrapped her arms around him and they lay contented and still in each others arms until the skies spilled open with water forcing them inside.

 

————————————-

Two days later they found themselves in a small rented house in Oban spending one of their last nights together before she returned to her London life. Oban was a close enough drive to Kilmartin for their ceremony which Claire finally had agreed to after a dream guided her to continue. They had visited the distillery, and spent the evening hiking McCaig’s Folly/Tower. Watching the sunset over the expanse of Oban, tucked into Jaime’s side, Claire let out a sigh and accepted all that was to come. She surrendered in her mind, her heart and most of all in her spirit to the absolute faith that they were meant to be together, and that whatever the ceremony brought, it was necessary for their evolution as souls.

 

Brilliant orange hues and pink clouds cascaded over the horizon as sunset neared while Claire and Jaime stood in the center of Nether Largie Standing Stones in Kilmartin. The area encompassed several cairns and standing stone circle scattered across fields. The research plus the guidance from Raymond and Mrs. Graham has been clear. They were each to carry a gemstone, lay down in the center and stay connected at the hands. Each also carried a bundle of brush symbolizing the end of the year (the death and end of the cycle), herbs had been sprinkled about the area as an offering to the earth and a candle was lit to guide the connection through the veil. A bonfire had also been suggested but given that the site had historical value, they decided not to risk burning the area to a crisp.

 

Samhain can be a time to honor those who have recently passed, connect and complete your cycles with them communicating through the veil. What Jaime and Claire didn’t know was that the passed loved ones they would be communicating with were their past selves.

 

Laying in the center of the circle, they began to meditate, opening the channels of their body to receive information for the highest good with full loving open hearts. The moment the sun dipped below the horizon, their bodies were sucked to the earth, almost magnetically. They squeezed each other’s hands not sure what the expect next, completely unable to move the rest of their bodies.

 

Claire slipped into a trance, felt her body being pushed and pulled in all directions, and being put back together so that she could receive and open to her vision. Their Egyptian life played out in front of her eyes. She saw the loving care of Gamal through the eyes of Chione. She saw the love they had for their daughter. The content loving happy scenes before her gave way to violence, deception and a fight for their lives. As Hatsheput lay dying, Chione (Claire) was blamed for her illness as her healer. The court believe she was poisoning this woman that she admired and had the utmost respect for. Chione was of course devastated but also in severe danger. Thutmose III, the female Pharaoh’s successor, had never trusted Chione and she believed he was behind the vicious rumors that she was responsible. Gamal ever her protector, had fought off his own men when they came for her and their daughter. Chione lay dying after a stab wound, life draining from her eyes, watching Gamal ferociously swinging his dagger. The last thing she saw before she died was him being impaled by a spear, with the knowledge that he would soon join her and their child in death.

 

Claire had no idea how long they lay there in the dark. The trance broke when Jaime could move his body again and rolled over the Claire’s side. He kneeled over her worried about her pale complexion, sweat covered body and her intense shaking. Jaime held her hand until she naturally came out of her state. Opening her eyes, she saw a concerned Jaime hovering over her and immediately sat up and embraced him. Silence surrounded them, giving them each the space to process as they held each other. Jaime leaned back and kissed her on the forehead murmuring Gaelic to her which always had calming effect on her.

 

Regaining speech, they sat in the stone circle still connected, facing each other and shared their experiences. Jaime went first. He had also seen the Egyptian life and the demise they each met. He interpreted it as confirming his duty to protect her and any children they might have. There was something else too, but he wouldn’t share that with Claire, he knew that was just for him, for now.

 

Claire recounted her perspective on the Egyptian life, and relayed that she had seen other lives with the same themes. She reflected that she thought they were shown the deaths to know how much they had sacrificed for each other through the ages. But she also thought it meant that this was the life to break that cycle. The challenges were different, it was a seemingly less dangerous time. She wasn’t going to be tried for witchcraft or accused of trying to kill a Pharoah in this life. The lessons would be distinctly separate and new, but would be there all the same. The visions were a reinforcement to their love, devotion and commitment to each other. Whatever was to come in this life, these themes presented themselves to give them faith in the times of hardship that would inevitably come as they shared this life together. Something she couldn’t wait for, even though she kept some information just for herself too. 

 

The paradox of trying to live in the modern world while knowing you are an old soul can never be understated. You know you have existed before and will exist again. You know that the only thing that matters is what you choose to give attention and meaning to in your life. Jaime and Claire would come up against this paradox again and again as they tried to navigate the world with their underlying soul memories and a connection that could not be explained by emotion, science, or the brain. The connection existed beyond human cognitive abilities. It was as mysterious as the arc of time itself. In the end there was only one explanation, Love. Only. Love.

 

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Thanks for reading!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N - This story will be on a little break as I am running my big work event for the year this weekend. Once I decompress from that I will decide how I am going to proceed. Thoughts right now are ending here with an epilogue and leaving the option open for another Arc of the story. But all TBD at this point. Also, that Clava Cairns note was a little light shade on myself not on other Outlander fans. I went there during one of my visits not knowing it was a place Outlander fans go, and I was caught off guard and then of course took a million stone circle pictures and ventured down the street Milton of Clava to get some more. I am sucker for Stone Circles, always have been.


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N - Alright lovely people, this is the end for now. Please see the end of the chapter for more notes. Thank you for reading my very first fic! It is appreciated more than you know. It has been an adventure for me!

** Epilogue **

**7 Years Later**

In the years since they met in this life, their lives had changed immeasurably. Secrets floated out, they were tested, sometimes every day but the fierceness of their love and devotion always won out in the end. It was their commitment to being with each other that grounded them and brought them back even in the darkest days, even through the loss of Faith. Once they came together, they had the single pointed goal of being together. Period.

Claire looked around Lallybroch as a few cars started to arrive. The estate had gone through a revolution, a massive period of growth, tracking Jaime and Claire’s own growth. This weekend they were welcoming another crew of people for a retreat at Lallybroch. Claire and Jaime’s story had become legendary overnight merely by accident several years earlier and led to unfolding a whole new arc of their life.

A reporter writing an article on well maintained historical estates in Scotland came to visit. The reporter had arranged for a private tour, which Jaime gladly gave, regaling him with stories of the previous Lairds, changes they had made to their property through the years and historical anecdotes that should only ever be heard from Jaime’s mouth. The reporter and Jaime hit it off, and ended the visit with far too much whisky. Since his marriage to Claire, when Jaime drank too much whisky, he prattled on about his amazing healer wife. The reporter, quite taken with their tale and how they met, included it in the article about Lallybroch.

It wasn’t long before people started showing up at the house under the guise of wanting a historical tour and started asking Jaime and Claire’s help in tracking down their own loves through time. They had no idea what to do. How could they possibly help these people. It’s not like it was a formula and poof you find the love of generations around the corner. They were both at a loss. 

People were insistent and that is how Claire and Jaime found themselves two years earlier at Beltane on the Isle of Lewis. Holding hands, lying down in the center of the Callanish stones at sunset, the couple prepared themselves for another ceremony. They didn’t know what to expect, but they knew the process and what they were supposed to do. Since their first Samhain ceremony, they had done many others throughout Scotland and the world, but each was unique and held untold truths within it. Pre-ceremony was always an anxious, exciting and terrifying time.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, twilight around them, they felt the familiar feeling of being sucked to the earth, immovable. Gripping each others hands tightly, they entered a trance like state. Eyes closed and inside of the eyelids acting like a screen. Their past lives together flashed before their eyes with ferocity and the encoding of the details and lessons of each life, intertwined their DNA, filled in the gaps of their beings. The entirety of their lives from first to current were revealed to them, lives they had together, lives they had separately, lives where they were blissful and lives where they were in deep pain. As the first light of dawn broke they came out of their trance but remained immovable and astounded by the information that was now encoded into their systems. It would take years to integrate all of it, to come to trust the deeper knowing that now never left their consciousness.

In the weeks after the Beltane ceremony, Jaime and Claire sequestered themselves in a cottage on Harris. Walking the the white sandy beaches of the west coast of the isle, integrating their new systems and learning from each other. They were each shown a piece of their current future life. Both deciphered that as a guidance on the way forward in their lives.

A week later, they were walking, skin connected on Luskentyre beach, watching each wave crash as they focused on the mountains in the distance. Each wave washed up information to the surface of Claire’s experience and it clicked.

“Love, I know what is next,” she said squeezing his hand.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her in for more contact and support as she found her words.

“You know that book we read when we were grieving for Faith? The one that helped after the year in darkness?”

“Aye, mo ghràidh, the Brian Weiss one. I ken it, what of it?”

“Many Master, Many Lives…I think I need to go study with him.”

“Is this about all those people that show up looking for our help?”

“Yes, I think it is. I think we ARE supposed to help. Between your knowledge of history, writing and being able to recognize the patterns of lives, and all of my healing capabilities and practices, and ability to bring to light the deeper soul lessons, I think it could be possible.”

Jaime, stopped me, and turned me to look me straight in the eye, hands on my shoulders. He kissed me lovingly. “I am in awe of your faith my love. If ye say it is the way forward, I trust ye. I will be by your side, let us give it a go. Nothing to lose and everything to learn.”

The time in Harris was magical for them, not only because of the soul work that was being integrated, but the time spent with each other, loving each other fully, accepting each other fully and always becoming their most true selves with the support of each other. There was also the wee souvenir that they brought back with them that arrived 9 months later, Brianna. Motherhood opened another channel in Claire that she was previously ignorant to and it informed every step she and Jaime made from there on out. 

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Two years after their opening at Callanish, they had morphed Lallybroch into a spiritual center for seekers of the new age. Claire had long since left the western medical practices but would still volunteer when needed at the local hospital, but their work was now together, helping people. 

It had started off small, intimate groups of 4 or 6 people, looking to access their deeper realms. But eventually, those seeking their soul partner returned and came out of the woodwork. They never promised anything except assistance in accessing the deeper levels of self and individual experience. Each retreat, or gathering had a specific theme. There was a hope of course that as each layer was peeled back, people would find more contentment and hopefully a partner but not every life is a life where the partner has also incarnated and recounting their own lives that had been separate, Jaime and Claire made sure people were aware of this, they did not want to provide false hope to anyone. They did however believe that you could have a happy and content life even if you weren’t with your true soul partner. There are many soul beings that you are destined to connect to in each life and each life has a different soul group that you come in with depending on the purposes of the life. Overlap is of course possible and there are some people you always travel with but each life is different. Getting comfortable with what the purpose is for the current life is what the work and gatherings they supported mostly worked on. It wasn’t all about the romance.

But as inevitably happens, if you start to bring together like minded people for a single purpose, there will be connections, soul and otherwise. After studying with Dr. Weiss and doing their own work at Lallybroch, they began to record, the interesting connections that would occur and the lessons that they were gleaming about life in general that could apply to a wider populace. A book was in their future whether they knew it or not, and would spur people in their thousands to visit Lallybroch.

Lallybroch thrived as a spiritual center and became world famous without their encouragement. Word of mouth carried people to their door, seeking. As Brianna grew up she went through the natural rejection of her parents world but eventually found that she had insights into the deeper realms without much effort. Although her parents never pushed her, she got curious on her own after a few dreams presented themselves and began to inhale every book in their library. As her father and mother had always known that they lived a life different from other men and women, she too knew she would do the same. She would continue their work when the time came.

**THE END**

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Thanks for reading!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N - This part was hard for me. As my first story, I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to end it considering I had so many versions in my head and I was still undecided (still am) on if I will fill in some of the gaps here with another arc. So, ya, it was HARD. There are so many different branches of this story that didn’t make it into the chapters too, but they were in my head while writing. Like a side story where John Grey and Jaime’s brother are together. One where Geillis and D play a bigger role. One where Jenny and Ian were not yet together and Jaime and Claire helped bring them together through their work and the center. And so many more avenues. And to top it all off while writing this story I started writing another multi-chapter piece (Izzy’s Place), a one shot, and a something else that I am not really sure what to make of yet. I’ve learned so much and I am so grateful for the experience of putting this may words together in one place and having people actually read them. Thank you for reading, thank you for commenting, thank you for it all! 
> 
> Also, you can find me on tumblr under the same name - calliopemoonbeam.tumblr.com


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